


Friday I'm in Love

by starrynightshade



Series: Gendrya Modern AU [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Complicated Relationships, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, I took a LOT of liberties with people's ages, Just Roll With It, Marriage, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, Shower Sex, Smut, Unplanned Pregnancy, Weddings, emotions are hard for these two, this is so self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2020-12-09 12:28:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 79,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20994806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrynightshade/pseuds/starrynightshade
Summary: Friday nights were Arya's night... until Gendry Waters got sexiled from his apartment.





	1. Dark & Stormy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friday marks the end of the week and the start of something else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics and chapter title by Croosh.

_See baby you're a free bird _

_ And I know you'll fly away _

_ Don't confuse this with a love song _

_ It's more of a kick back _

_ Sip this drink and catch a buzz song… _

_ Dark and stormy _

_ That's the drink that she poured me _

_ On that Friday afternoon _

Arya liked Friday nights. Actually, Arya loved Friday nights. They were, in her opinion, the most important night of the week. Sunday through Thursday she spent her nights at her desk, going over notes or typing up whatever assignment was due next. On Saturdays, she tried to meet up with Jon, called her parents, or Robb, or Sansa, and when night fell she let herself cut loose. On Saturday nights she would put on an outfit that would make her mother lightheaded, and meet up with some friends for a night of drinking, dancing, and other various forms of debauchery. Saturday nights were great.

But Fridays? Friday nights were _ her _ night. Her classes were done by 3:30, leaving Arya time to enjoy an extended workout, maybe even a sparring match if she could muster up a partner, before heading back to her apartment for a long shower and a night of Netflix and snacks. Friday nights were all about Arya, and it was just the way she liked it.

She was standing in her kitchen, hips swaying a bit to the music that wafted through the apartment as she perused the contents of the fridge when a loud buzz rang through the apartment. Someone wanted to be let in, and thanks to the broken intercom system at the door, she didn’t know who it was.

She pulled her phone off of its dock, pausing her playlist and checking her messages as she made her way into the hallway and down the stairs. _No messages… So who the hell is on my doorstep at 6:00 on a Friday night?_

Gendry. Gendry Waters was standing in front of her door, bundled up against the raging snowstorm that was brewing outside. His stubbly cheeks were pink from the whipping wind, which only served to make his impossibly blue eyes look even bluer. Not that she noticed that…

“I should have texted,” he said sheepishly. He had never shown up on a Friday before, but Arya wouldn’t turn him away.

“Sexiled already?”

“Jon’s class got out early. They’re going at it like rabbits, Arry! Really, really loud rabbits.” The use of Jon’s childhood nickname for her made Arya’s jaw twitch, but she let it slide for now. Gendry reached a gloved hand into his backpack and pulled out a bottle of vodka, holding it out as if it were a peace offering. “I come bearing gifts.”

“You may enter.” She stepped back, holding the door open so he could follow her out of the cold.

Four months ago it would have been odd for him to show up at her place without Jon, but lately it had been happening more and more. Arya hadn’t met the girl Jon had started dating at the beginning of the school year, but she knew that Jon had a hell of a lot of sex with her if the number of times Gendry had been forced out by their incredibly loud intercourse was anything to go off of.

She was happy for Jon, really, though she did worry about his grades. Everyone always said the first year of law school was designed to break people and she didn’t want him to be left in the dust because he was distracted. He had assured her that he was doing fine over Christmas break though, so Arya tried not to worry too much. Besides, it had all sort of worked out in her favor. Gendry didn’t have a ton of friends outside of his roommate, so Arya didn’t mind taking him in on occasion. Plus it had given her a chance to get to know him beyond “that hot guy Jon brings home on breaks sometimes.” 

Truth be told, Arya had had quite the crush on him in her high school years. Fortunately, it had waned since then… at least, that’s what she told herself. Gendry was fun and kind and easy-going, and she didn’t want to throw away the comfortable friendship they’d found over her stupid schoolgirl crush. Of course, that didn’t mean she couldn’t flirt with him a little.

“Tell me they at least made it to the bedroom this time,” she said, leading him up the stairs. She’d put on a particularly flattering pair of yoga pants after her shower, and if there was a little extra swing in her hips on the way towards the door to her apartment, it certainly wasn’t on his account.

“Yes, but just barely.”

Arya unlocked the door and stepped aside, motioning for him to come in. “Oh to be young and in love…or horny. I think they’re both.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for them, but…” Gendry shook his head as he shucked off his coat to reveal a black hoodie.

It looked so thick and soft, and made Arya instantly hyper-aware of her flimsy tank-top and the fact that the built-in bra (if the little strip of fabric could even be called that) was doing next to nothing to conceal her nipples, which had decided to make themselves known as soon as the first gust of winter air had hit her skin. Well, the cat was out of the bag now.

“You don’t want to listen to your best friend and his girlfriend go at it like a couple of horny teenagers?” Arya pushed herself up onto the counter to grab a pair of glasses, only for Gendry’s long arm to cut her off. He set the glasses on the countertop in front of her with a smirk.

“Anything else I can fetch for you, m’lady?”

“Showoff.” Arya hopped back down to the floor and went to inspect the inside of the fridge again. “Did you eat yet?”

“That depends. Are you on one of those nasty diets Sam is always talking about?”

“If by ‘nasty diet’ you mean eating more than two vegetables a week, then yes.” Gendry gave her a shrug that she knew to mean ‘same difference’ but didn’t object. “Luckily for you, tonight is cheat night. How do tacos sound?”

“Sounds like I should have brought tequila,” he laughed.

Arya pulled some mixers out of the fridge and set them next to the glasses, orange soda for him and lemonade for her. “I’ll cook, you mix drinks.”

“You’re an angel.”

She snorted at that, rolling her eyes. “Tell that to my mother.”

“What’s she mad about now?”

To his credit, Gendry listened attentively as she bemoaned her mother’s constant dissatisfaction with her youngest daughter’s life choices, pouring her a second drink when the first had disappeared between rambling sentences. “I’m not like Sansa,” she grumbled, taking out her frustration on a head of lettuce. “I didn’t come here to meet some rich idiot I can marry and get a pointless degree. I want to go places, see things. I can’t just…give up on being a journalist because it’s not ‘practical’ to her.”

“I’m sure she’s just looking out for you, in her own way.”

Arya felt like she’d been punched in the gut. _ God, I’m such an asshole, _ she thought. Here she was complaining about her overprotective mother, who (if Arya was honest) just wanted her daughter to have a secure future, while he had no mother at all. “I’m sorry. I must sound like such a brat.”

She couldn’t quite bring herself to look at him, so she kept her focus on the cutting board when he spoke. “Arya, it’s fine. You don’t have to walk on eggshells with me, and you definitely don’t need to feel bad for wanting to vent about your frustrations.”

“Well, at least let me return the favor.” She picked up the tomato and began dicing it with precision. “What troubles you, lad?”

“Your brother and the inhuman noises coming from his room.”

Arya made a gagging noise and held her glass out to him. “You’re gonna need to top me off before we delve any further into my brother’s sex life.”

Gendry obliged, replacing the few sips she’d taken with a fresh pour of vodka. He actually did vent a bit about his constant banishment, but it wasn’t long before he was cracking jokes about the situation. “I was thinking about just turning it into a drinking game, but I hear alcohol poisoning is a shitty way to die.”

Arya laughed at that, feeling more relaxed than she had when he’d arrived. She wanted to attribute it to the alcohol, but she hadn’t had nearly enough to use that excuse. Damn him and his charming personality.

Before long the food was ready and they were piling up their plates and heading to the couch.

Gendry took a big bite while Arya opened Netflix, humming in approval as he chewed. “This is really good! How did I not know you could cook?”

Arya shrugged, rebuffing the praise, however indirect. “I guess you never asked. Ooh! I’ve been meaning to watch this,” she said, letting the controller hover over the title card until the trailer started playing. It was a docu-series about a decade-long hunt for a pair of serial killers, complete with expert interviews and slightly cheesy reenactments.

“You know, if you weren’t so little, I’d be scared you were a serial killer too,” he said as the trailer finished.

“I’m not little,” she protested, giving his shoulder a shove. “Everyone around me is just freakishly tall. I am perfectly sized, thank you very much.”

Gendry smirked but didn’t comment. Apparently he was happy enough having gotten a rise out of her.

“Do you want to watch this or not?”

He really shouldn’t have been given an option, seeing as he had crashed her sacred Friday night ritual. But he had also brought alcohol and made her laugh about the whole Jon situation, so he got a free pass just for one night.

“Only if you hold my hand during the scary parts,” he teased.

Arya tried desperately to fight the blush that crept into her cheeks, but to no avail. Hopefully he would chalk it up to the alcohol. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

“Well in that case, go ahead.”

Arya pressed play and the first episode began. For a while the two of them simply ate in amiable silence, watching the documentary and enjoying the food. When the first episode finished, she picked up her plate and headed back to the kitchen to take care of the dishes.

“Let me,” Gendry insisted, trying to snatch the sponge from her hand. “You made dinner. It’s the least I can do.”

“I can do it.”

Gendry leaned against the counter, blocking her from the sink. “I know you _ can _ , I’m just not going to _ let _ you.”

Arya realized she was fighting an uphill battle. Maybe it was best to wave a white flag? “Fine,” she mumbled, handing over the sponge. “But I’m making you brownies.”

“Oh no. How terrible. You really got me this time,” he said flatly.

Rolling her eyes, Arya started gathering the ingredients for the brownies. She had to slide behind him to grab a mixing bowl at one point, only to realize she’d made a terrible mistake. From her vantage point she could see the play of the muscles in his forearm as he scrubbed the pan.

_ Well that’s a new turn-on... _

With the bowl in hand, she nearly jumped away from him and scurried back to her little patch of counter space. _ What the fuck _ , she mentally berated herself. _ Gendry Waters is not even close to being an option, no matter how sexy his arms are…or how good he smells…or how gorgeous his eyes are… _

After another minute of mental admonishing she had pulled herself together and resolved to put all her focus on the task at hand. _ Just make the damn brownies, Arya _. Surely she could manage that, right?

He asked how her first week back at school had gone as she folded the eggs into the mixture. She had a full schedule and it was going to make for a busy semester. She’d already been given three assignments and it was only syllabus week. Gendry chuckled, reminding her that she had nobody to blame but herself. “You’re the one who decided to double major.”

He was right, but she didn’t want to admit it. She flipped the question around on him instead, asking if he was excited for his last semester. He admitted he had mixed feelings about it, mostly on account of what came next.

She found herself reminded once again just how good she and her siblings had it. Robb hadn’t had to think twice about enrolling for his MBA, and Jon was able to dedicate as much time as necessary to law school without worrying about where his next tuition check was coming from. Theon, whose internet fame had seemingly exploded overnight, no longer needed her parents’ support but knew that it was there if ever he failed. And even Sansa, whose perfectly-laid plans had come undone following her recent breakup, had nothing to worry about when it came to financing whatever came next for her.

Gendry didn’t have that luxury. She knew he was a little embarrassed about taking an extra year to graduate, but Arya didn’t think any less of him for it. He tried not to talk about money around her and Jon, but she knew he worked his ass off at the mechanic’s shop every week, took out loans, and kept his grades up so he could qualify for as many scholarships as possible. Everything he had was earned, and she admired him for it. _ I’m the one who should be embarrassed _, she thought to herself.

When the dishes were done and the timer on the oven had been set, they both made their way back to the sofa and plopped down. Arya tried to ignore the fact that he seemed to be sitting closer than before and started up the next episode. He’d mixed her another drink and she took a long sip of it as the intro started playing, trying to remember if it was her fourth or fifth of the night.

“Fuck, Waters. How drunk are you trying to get me?” She grimaced as the slightly too-strong drink burned its way down her throat.

“Sorry,” he chuckled picking the lemonade off the coffee table and trying to dilute her drink a bit. “Too rich for your blood?”

“If I wanted to get shit-faced and make bad choices, I would have just done a bunch of shots,” she said as the alcohol warmed her blood. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you wanted me to do something dumb tonight.”

“How much trouble could you possibly get into with just the two of us here?”

“More than you think,” she mused, taking another drink and hoping he wouldn’t try to figure out what that was supposed to mean. She was honestly trying to push the thought away herself. “You’re not scared, are you?”

He rolled his eyes at her teasing and apparently forgot about what she had said. “It’s okay. I know it’s not real.”

The actor portrayal on the screen ended and an interview with a retired detective began. The two of them lapsed into silence for a while, though Arya could barely pay any attention to the series. He had draped his arm over the back of the sofa and she could feel the heat of his still exposed forearm radiating against the back of her neck. It almost seemed merciful when the timer on the oven went off.

“Do you want me to pause this?” Gendry pointed at the screen as she walked back into the kitchen.

“Let it play. This will only take a second.”

After checking the brownies, she turned the oven off and set them on the cooktop to cool. “They smell amazing,” Gendry said as she walked back to the sofa and picked up her drink.

“They have to cool a bit,” she informed him before draining what remained in her glass. “They’ll probably be ready when this episode ends.”

Gendry leaned forward to mix her another drink and she could tell he was trying to be careful about how much vodka he added this time. When he was done, he refilled his own glass with a lot of vodka and a little soda and tapped it against hers before raising it to his lips.

Arya took a long sip from her glass. “What did we toast?”

He looked over at her and the lamp in the corner threw the angles of his face into sharp contrast. In the dim light, his eyes looked like pools of sunlit water. _ I guess his name is fitting _ , she thought. She could drown in those pools, given the chance.

Gendry shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. Unless you had something in mind?”

Arya wished her brain would shut up. She took another long sip of her drink and tried to drown out the warring voices in her head: one that wanted to taste his lips and feel his body against hers and one that was trying to remind her why that was a terrible idea. The alcohol seemed to silence the latter voice quite well.

She set her glass down on the coffee table. “How about bad choices?”


	2. Cassiopeia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collision of sorts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is is! Special thanks to aryasbadenergy and fineosaur for putting up with me as I tried to figure out how to get these images to work. Lyrics and chapter title by Sara Bareilles. Please be mindful of the rating and enjoy!

_ Tonight come on, come on collide _

_ Break me to pieces _

_ I think you’re just like heaven…. _

_ Let’s see what a fire feels like _

_ I bet it’s just like heaven. _

“What did we toast?”

“I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. Unless you had something in mind?”

She set her glass down on the coffee table. “How about bad choices?”

Before she could think too much about it, Arya leaned over and kissed him.

He seemed to hesitate for a moment, not quite responding, and Arya nearly panicked. Had she misread the electric current that had been building up between them? Had she fucked things up irreversibly? 

She was about to pull away when his hand came to rest on the back of her neck, keeping her close. Finally, he kissed her back. It was cautious at first, but when she pressed the tip of her tongue against his lips, something seemed to ignite.

There was a small commotion off to the side as he slammed his glass down onto the coffee table, but once his second hand was free he used it to grip her hip and drag her onto his lap. She reached out to steady herself, gripping the back of the sofa with one hand on either side of his head as she straddled him.

He was an excellent kisser, she realized. Certainly the best she had encountered in a few years. He held her close without suffocating her and let his tongue tease hers just enough to make her wonder what else he could do with it.

Feeling a bit more steady, she released one hand from the sofa and buried it in his thick hair. He responded by holding her closer and nipping at her bottom lip— not too hard, but just enough for her to feel a bit of a sting. She tugged his hair in retaliation.

“_ Arya _,” he half moaned, and damned if it wasn’t the single sexiest thing she’d ever heard.

Emboldened, she rolled her hips once, then once more when she felt him buck up to meet her. Between his grey sweats and her skintight yoga pants, there was no ignoring his growing erection. Fuck, she wanted him badly… 

Trusting him to not let her fall and smack her head on the coffee table, she reached for the hem of his hoodie. It took a few tries, given their level of distraction, but she eventually managed to tug it over his head along with the t-shirt underneath. She wanted to admire him for a moment — explore the toned muscles of his chest with her eyes and investigate the web of ink that spilled over his left shoulder, but he pulled her back to him and kissed her with a hunger that outweighed her curiosity.

She rewarded his tenacity with another roll of her hips. “Fuck, Arya…” he murmured against her lips as her hands roamed the hard expanse of his chest. His grip on her hip tightened as she kissed the patch of skin just beneath his ear.

She was about to pull off her own shirt when something started vibrating against her leg, blaring “Shake it Off” at maximum volume. They both pulled back in surprise, though Gendry recovered first. “It’s Shireen. I have to take this,” he said, wrangling the phone out of his pocket and accepting the call.

Arya took a moment to catch her breath as Gendry greeted his foster sister. Now that she wasn’t distracted she could investigate the tattoos that covered his shoulder. At first, all she noticed were the finely detailed gears and mechanisms. When she started tracing her fingers over the inked skin, she realized that there were several types of flowers interwoven with the design.

It was beautiful work — detailed with sharp, clear lines. As she lightly trailed her fingertips along the pattern, she couldn’t help but think it had a slightly feminine air to it, despite the metal mechanisms. She wondered if that had been on purpose.

“You did? That’s great work,” Gendry was saying into his phone. There was another pause as Shireen babbled away on the other end of the line. “Yeah, but ask Davos first though.”

Impatient, Arya rolled her hips again, running her fingers through his thick hair. Gendry grit his teeth and narrowed his eyes at her. _ Fine _, she thought as she stood up. She would have to go find a distraction. She paused the tv, making sure her ass was right in his line of sight as she bent over the coffee table, then sauntered off to the kitchen.

She couldn’t be too put out. There were few things in the world that Gendry truly loved and the girl on the phone was one of them. His foster parents, the Seaworths, had started fostering Shireen when she was nine and Gendry was seventeen. Arya still remembered the day he had gotten the call from Davos that the year-long legal battle over the girl’s permanent custody had been settled in their favor and that Shireen would stay with them until she turned eighteen. Jon had invited him to spend Easter at Winterfell and Gendry had hugged nearly every member of their household as soon as he hung up the phone.

Arya had never met the girl in person, but Jon had once told her that she looked at Gendry like he’d been the one to place the moon in the sky. If a single good thing had come out of his mom’s death, she thought, it was Gendry and Shireen meeting. He loved her fiercely, the way Jon loved Arya -- the way every girl deserved to be loved by her big brother.

She had just finished cutting the brownies when she heard him say goodbye and follow her into the kitchen. “Let me guess, she got straight A’s again,” Arya said. In the harsh light of the kitchen she found herself struggling to turn around and face him.

“What?”

“Shireen,” she clarified. “On Tuesday you said she was waiting on her exam grades from last semester.”

“Oh, yeah. All A’s again. That kid’s smarter than I ever was.”

“Good, that means we have a reason to celebrate,” she replied, scooping one of the edge pieces onto a small plate. Gathering all her courage, she turned around and handed it to him.

He took it willingly but didn’t eat, just stared down at it for a long moment before setting it down on the counter. “Arry…”

She cut him off. “No. Don’t talk. If you talk, you’re going to say that we fucked up and we didn’t, so just shut up and enjoy your brownie.”

“Arya, we shouldn’t have… this is a bad idea.”

“Says who?”

“Says logic! You’re my best friend’s little sister,” he pointed out. “Do you have any idea how pissed Jon would be if we… if he found out that we were…”

“Fuck what Jon thinks,” Arya countered, feeling bolder now than she had before. She wanted this, damn it. She and her brother shared a deep bond, but he wasn’t the boss of her. “We’re both adults. And I was under the impression that I was a little bit more to you than Jon’s kid sister by now.”

“You are. You’re my friend too and I don’t want to lose that.”

“So we just act like it never happened? I think it may be a little too late for that,” she said, frustrated with his apparent determination to starve the both of them of whatever it was that had been growing between them over the past few months. _ He’d rather cut down the whole damn tree than risk it growing poisoned fruit _, she realized. “That cat’s already out of the bag. We can’t just undo it because you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared,” he countered. “We’re drunk, Arya.”

“We’re barely buzzed, but if you want to say you’re wasted, I’m making you spend the night anyway. So, you might as well just spare yourself some awkwardness, admit that you want me and come do something about it!”

She hadn’t realized how loud their voices had gotten until he let out a long breath and finally replied. “Are you always going to be this stubborn with me?” He met her eyes as he said it and some carnal part of her brain knew she had him.

“Absolutely,” she breathed and suddenly she was trapped between the cold angles of the counter and his warm, supple body. His kiss was half desire and half frustration, searing her with intensity, but Arya didn’t back down. Instead she tangled her hands in his hair again, letting the short strands in the back tickle the tips of her fingers.

He pulled back just long enough to pull her flimsy tank top over her head and toss it away, not caring where it landed. She barely had time to register the naked hunger in his gaze before his mouth and his hands were converging on her chest, palming her breasts as he traced her sternum with his tongue.

She would try to deny it, but she gasped at the sudden overload of sensation. His fingertips felt electric, sending jolts of pleasure through her body as he rested them against her ribcage and teased her nipples with his calloused thumbs. It was too much and not nearly enough all at once.

His lips started tracing a meandering line down her body, forcing him to kneel in front of her in order to keep going. Arya tossed her head back as he nipped and sucked at the skin just inside her hip. She was so distracted by his mouth that she almost didn’t notice his fingers slipping down her sides, over the dip of her waist and the slight swell of her hips until they collided with the hem of her yoga pants.

He paused there, waiting for her reaction. _ This is it, _ Arya thought. _ This is the point of no return _. She looked down, locking eyes with the man at her feet — a man waiting for permission to continue worshiping her body — and nodded.

Gendry’s fingers hooked over her waistband, tugging at the yoga pants and the panties underneath. They weren’t exactly her cutest pair and Arya spared a millisecond to be grateful that he didn’t seem to be paying any attention to them. He took his sweet time sliding the fabric down her legs, leaving a trail of kisses in their wake before freeing one foot, then the other and tossing the garments over his shoulder in the general direction of her tank top.

He looked back up at her and her gut twisted in a way it hadn’t since her first time. She was _ nervous _. She tried to trample down the feeling before it could get the better of her. After all, this was Gendry. She could trust him.

He seemed to sense her indecision because he paused again, hands resting on the backs of her knees. “Arya…” Even in the shitty florescent lights of her kitchen, his eyes looked like bottomless pools of water. He wasn’t going to hurt her, her heart whispered. At least, not tonight.

“I’m fine,” she assured him. “Just admiring the view.”

Something passed over his face, drawing it into a devilish grin she hadn’t seen before but hoped to see again. “I know the feeling.” Gently, he wrapped his hand around her ankle and picked it up.

Arya reached behind her and steadied herself on the counter as he draped her leg over his shoulder and kissed his way towards her center. He seemed intent on prolonging his torture, stopping to nip at a particularly sensitive spot on her inner thigh.

Finally he gripped her hips, holding her in place, and let his tongue delve between her folds. Arya’s eyes couldn’t help but flutter closed as her head fell back once more. She was lost in the feeling of his thumbs rubbing slow circles on her skin as he tasted her.

“Fuck Ar, you’re so wet,” he growled.

For the life of her she couldn’t formulate a response, just moaned as he brought a hand between her thighs and slipped two fingers into her slick center. It was slow, delicious torture when he started working them in and out of her, tracing lazy circles around her clit with his thumb. His free hand had returned to roaming her body, exploring the curve of her ass and the sensitive spot on her spine that made her shiver.

“Gendry, please…” she whined. Arya wasn’t one to beg but he’d brought her to the edge and let her teeter along it for too damn long. Sweet release was just out of reach and she knew it.

He looked up from where he had been leaving a love bite on the inside of her thigh, just beneath the first one. When he caught her looking back at him he smirked, actually smirked and went back to what he had been doing. _ Stupid stubborn asshole _ ,she thought. _ If he thinks he can just — holy shit! _

Gendry had apparently given in, increasing his tempo and bringing his mouth back to her core to tease her clit with his tongue. It felt like she was drowning in sensations. Her lungs fought to catch up with the hammering of her heart until every last nerve in her body seemed to fire simultaneously. 

She gasped out what was meant to be his name, but probably sounded like incomprehensible nonsense, as her back arched and flashes of white light overtook her vision. She had just enough control left over her body to cling to the edge of the counter as her thighs quivered, threatening to bring her crashing down to the ground. He was still kneeling in front of her when she started to come down from the high, gripping her hips with both hands to steady her as he slowly started kissing his way back up her body.

He paused somewhere around the edge of her rib cage to ask if she was alright and set her foot back on the ground. Arya figured he already knew the answer since he chuckled a little as he said it. Smug bastard.

“I’ll be even better when you’re naked,” she told him, eyeing the sweatpants he still wore.

He seemed to take stock of the kitchen before sweeping her up like she weighed nothing and walking towards the door to her bedroom. “Not here,” was all he said before nudging the door open with his foot and laying her down on the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Things will pick up right where we left off for chapter 3. In the meantime, I'd love to hear your thoughts, so please drop a comment down below!


	3. Too Far

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya learns how far Gendry will go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is porn, y'all. 
> 
> Lyrics and title by INDIGO and Hailey Grey

_ I’m drowning slowly, you’re intoxicating _

_ Sip my body like it’s your escape _

_ I don’t wanna go, don’t make me _

_ You don’t wanna stop, I won’t make you _

The only light in the room came from the fish tank on the dresser, casting a somewhat eerie glow over the ceiling and silhouetting Gendry’s frame in a bluish aura as he stood at the end of her bed. Arya twisted onto her side to flick the switch of the lamp on her bedside table. The warm light filtering through the lampshade washed over her body, revealing the beginnings of little purple patches on her thighs and hips.

Gendry reached out to ghost his fingertips over one of them but didn’t say anything. The tiniest hint of a smile tugged up the corner of his lip as his eyes took stock of the little marks and Arya got the distinct impression he had every intention of giving her more. She hoped he did. There was something so delicious about having his marks all over her, even if they were the only ones who would see them.

“If you’re done patting yourself on the back,” she said, propping herself up on one arm as she looped the other around his neck, “I’d really like to fuck you.”

“Bossy,” he mumbled as she dragged him down for a kiss. He chased her lips as she settled back down onto the mattress, bracing his hands on either side of her head.

_ Maybe _ , Arya thought,  _ but you’ll learn to appreciate it _ . She kept one arm around him, sweeping her fingernails across his broad shoulders in a feather-light caress. Her other hand skimmed along the warm skin of his chest as he let her taste her own sweet tang on his lips and tongue. It was the same slow-paced, almost leisurely exploration he’d been engaging in back in the kitchen.

Arya had a better idea.

Impatient, and feeling more bold than she had all night, she moved her hand down his chest and over his strong stomach until it was delving beneath the waistband of his sweatpants. He pulled away and groaned as she wrapped her hand around his cock, burying his face in the crook of her neck as she gave it a quick upward stroke followed by a slow stroke from the tip back to the base.  _ He’s big _ , she realized as she ran her thumb over his silky tip.

“Arya…” he groaned into her neck.

She teased him once more as she pressed her lips to his ear. “Get naked.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. His first attempt to rid himself of his remaining clothes nearly sent him over the edge of the bed, making Arya laugh until he kissed her quiet again. His second attempt was more successful and she couldn’t help but lick her lips when he was finally as naked as her. 

“Happy now?” He was hovering over her, kissing her neck and Arya never wanted it to end. She could feel the dampness pooling between her thighs at every pass of his lips over her skin.

“Very,” she sighed, letting her eyes rove the length of him. She wanted to take him in like this— wanted to remind herself that this was real. Arya let herself drink in everything from his mussed up black hair to the equally dark pupils that had eclipsed most of his irises, from the perfectly formed muscles of his arms and chest to the way his erection skimmed over the skin of her stomach as he kissed his way across her throat.

He was perfect, but when he pulled away from her he was frowning. Gone was the smirking and bravado of only a few minutes ago. Gendry looked ready to pull his clothes back on and go.

“Arya, are you sure?” He barely whispered it and Arya knew he didn’t want her to feel obligated to go any further.

But she didn’t feel obligated, she felt fucking  _ desperate _ . There would be conversations and messy details to be ironed out later, but in the moment all she could think about was how badly she wanted him. He was right there, within arm’s reach, and she wasn’t backing down now.

“I want you,” she said, locking their eyes so he could see the honesty there. “I’m sure.”

He took a deep breath before nodding slowly. “I wasn’t expecting this. I don’t have- ”

“In the drawer,” Arya instructed, indicating her bedside table. His long arm extended, tugging the drawer open halfway and eventually withdrawing a single condom from the box she kept there for the odd hookup. They weren’t strictly necessary from a birth control standpoint, but Arya kept that to herself as he slipped it on and gave himself a few short strokes to test the fit.

He still looked hesitant despite her insistence, so Arya hooked one leg over his hip and hoped he would get the message. It seemed to snap him out of it. Gendry leaned in closer, brushing his lips over the shell of her ear and following the curve of her throat as he used one hand to drag the tip of his cock along her slit.

_ If he doesn’t fuck me in the next twenty seconds I’m gonna _ — the thought was cut off by a sudden thrust that had him bottoming out inside of her.

“Mmmmh,” she hummed as her eyes slammed shut.  _ Fuck, he feels amazing _ . And the feeling only amplified as he took his time withdrawing almost completely before he repeated the sudden movement as he pressed his lips to hers.

She found herself gripping the sheets, then his back as he thrust into her again, sighing into their kiss. “You feel so good,” she said, voice barely managing a whisper and Gendry buried his face into her neck to groan.

“Fuck, don’t say shit like that.”

He kept pushing into her fast and hard, then withdrawing slowly so she could feel every inch of him. “Ah! Why not?”

Gendry stilled for a second to look her in the eye and his irises were more black than blue. Arya could only imagine how she looked, hair all messed up and cheeks flushed with arousal, if the heat in her face was anything to go off of. “Because I am using every ounce of restraint I have to not fuck you into this mattress like a horny teenager,” he nearly growled. “And you are seriously weakening my resolve.”

“Would it help if I tell you that I like it kinda rough?”

He shook his head and resumed his pace, burying his face in her neck again as he pushed into her once more. “I’m going to do this right,” he swore. “Trust me, it’ll be worth it.”

Arya was by no means inexperienced and she knew what she did and didn’t like in bed. She liked being on top, where she felt she had control. She liked it rough and hard and fast. She liked biting her lip as she came and not giving her neighbors a reason to avoid eye contact the next morning. She liked her rules.

Gendry didn’t give a shit about them.

Gendry pushed her hands into the mattress and kept her body underneath him. He took his sweet time exploring her mouth as he continued dragging his hips away at a maddening pace, only to slam back into her at the last second. And when she bit back a moan after a particularly deep thrust he shook his head in disapproval.

“Don’t. I want to hear you,” he murmured against her throat. “I want to know that you like it.”

And with that, he canted his hips slightly upward and this time she let herself moan out loud. “Ah! Right there…”

“Here?” He repeated the movement, making her back arch in pleasure.

“Fuck! Yeah, right there.” A part of her knew she sounded desperate, wanton even, but she somehow couldn’t find it in herself to care.

He drew back again and Arya nearly screamed in frustration when he pulled out completely. She could hear him chuckle through the haze of her drawn-out bliss and realized she had actually whined at the loss of contact. If she wasn’t so desperate to have him back inside of her, she might have been embarrassed.

“Trust me,” he breathed running a hand along her side until he reached her knee and drew it up over his shoulder. In one fluid motion he was gliding back into her, drawing a gasp from her lips at the delicious friction of the new angle.

“Better?” His face was inches from hers, eyes scanning her features for even the most minuscule tell. Arya simply nodded. She didn’t trust her tongue to form proper words at the moment but Gendry seemed to get the message. “Good.”

When he leaned down to kiss her again she thought he was going to resume his torturous pace but this time his thrusts were a bit faster, though no less punishing. Arya could feel that familiar tension coiling inside of her, intensifying with every unforgiving thrust.

“Harder,” she pleaded, realizing that this pace wound eventually bring her to the edge, but never let her over it.

She thought for a moment that he was going to make her beg and the idea made her dizzy with frustration. He didn’t though. Instead he started moving incrementally faster until his pace bordered on frantic.

By this point she had one hand buried so deep in his hair she thought it might be stuck forever and the other clinging desperately to his back. There were probably going to be marks but Arya thought it was only fair. He’d given her enough love bites, she figured he deserved a few scratches.

“Fuck, that’s perfect,” she panted as the pressure that had built up threatened to tear her apart. “Just like that…”

He might have said something, or maybe not. Arya couldn’t be sure because it was at that moment that her last shred of control was lost. Pleasure shot through her like lightning, turning every nerve into a blaze of white-hot bliss as she came apart around him. For a few moments (or maybe they were hours) she felt completely weightless.

When she finally came crashing back down to reality he was still there, pulling her through the fog of her orgasm with quick, deep strokes. He kissed her neck as his pace quickened, then faltered as he groaned against her pulse point, coming hard inside of her. Arya closed her eyes, letting her lungs and heart fall back into rhythm with one another.

“You okay?”

When she opened her eyes Gendry was looking down at her. His forehead was speckled with sweat and his breathing was just as uneven as hers. His eyes still looked like pools of calm water though, and it comforted her.

She nodded her head, taking a deep breath. “Better than okay,” Arya assured him.

He grabbed a tissue off her bedside table, using it to clean up before tossing the condom in the waste basket under the desk.

Arya stared up at the shadows on her ceiling as her breathing evened out.  _ Now what? _ This was usually the part where she gently shoved whoever she had brought home out the door, took a shower, and curled up under some fresh sheets.

But this wasn’t another one of her casual hookups. This was Gendry, and she sort of didn’t want him to leave. It wasn’t like she wanted to cuddle and talk about the future either, but there had to be some happy medium here, right?

“You want those brownies now?” She panicked for a brief second when he didn’t respond, only to relax when he let out one of his familiar laughs. 

“I’ll get them. You stay put.”

“I don’t have a choice,” she said with a slightly shaky laugh of her own. “I don’t think my legs work yet.”

“My bad,” he smirked, pulling his sweats back on. He had a smattering of scratch marks across his back and some serious sex hair. It was hot as hell, she realized with a jolt.

Gendry walked out into the kitchen, leaving the door open while Arya pulled the covers up over herself and tried not to panic. What the hell had she been thinking? That they were going to fuck, admit their undying love to each other, and ride off into the sunset? That they were going to have a one night stand and never see each other again? That he wasn’t going to be sitting across from her at Easter dinner in a few months?

_ I fucked my brother’s best friend. _ Oh, this was not good. Except, it was. It had been soooo good, until reality hit her like one of Rickon’s soccer balls to her face.

She could almost hear Sansa’s voice in her head. “ _ You always do this, Arya. You do what you want in the moment and don’t think about the consequences _ .”

Except fucking Jon’s best friend was not really like pulling an all-nighter to go dancing with Meera or going shot for shot with Theon at one of his infamous house parties. This couldn’t be fixed with a couple aspirin and some coffee. This was much, much worse.

“You want another drink?” Gendry’s voice bounced strangely around the kitchen and into her bedroom.

“Nah, I’m done for the night,” she called back.  _ And maybe the rest of my life _ , she added in her head.

She took a deep breath. Okay, there was no need to panic, right? It wasn’t like they had gotten married. It was just sex. Really fantastic sex, but nonetheless…

Her thoughts were cut off by Gendry walking back into the room with two small plates in his hands. He placed one in her waiting hands, but stayed standing as he nibbled on his dessert. “I’ve never been in here before,” he mused, looking around her room.

It wasn’t anything special. The furniture was mostly cheap ikea junk, decorated with photographs and the occasional indoor plant, just like the rest of her apartment. The few splashes of color around the otherwise black and white interior came from the succulents in the corner, the photos over her desk, and the little pink, purple, and blue flag that Meera had gotten her at NYC Pride the year before.

Gendry wandered towards the other side of the room and surveyed the collection of frames on top of the dresser. “You took all of these?”

Arya nodded. The pictures he was looking at were all silhouettes. One of Sansa in her tutu, waiting in the wings of a theatre, one of Bran in his favorite window seat with a book, one of Jon and Robb tossing a football with Theon in front of the ocean, one of Rickon running between the densely packed trees on their property, and one of her parents holding hands on the beach in Mexico.

“The ones over the desk are all mine too,” she told him, pointing at the collage frame hanging above her laptop. These ones there were all fully lit, and she was even in some of them.

“I don’t know if I should be flattered that I’m up here or worried that your only picture of me is a shirtless one,” he chuckled, pointing to a snap of him and Jon facing off against Robb and Theon in a chicken fight in the pool of some hotel. That particular photo was a few years old but she loved the way that all four of them were laughing in it.

“Why? Feeling objectified?” She took another bite of her brownie as she smirked at him.

“Maybe I am,” he said, feigning indignation.

She didn’t know why, but the exchange calmed her nerves immeasurably. Maybe because it proved that despite what had happened, he was still her friend. She could still trust him. They could figure this out.

“I’m sorry,” she said, so low it was almost a whisper.

“I was only joking,” he assured her.

“Not about the picture. I mean about this,” she said gesturing vaguely around the room.

He set his plate down on the desk and perched on the edge of the bed. “Do you regret it?”

“No...I just didn't really think past this part,” she admitted. “I just mean that this doesn’t mean anything has to change. I don’t want anything to change. We can still be friends, right?”

“Why do I feel like you’re trying to break up with me?”

Arya buried her face in her hands, letting out a groan. Why couldn’t she get him to understand what she meant?

“You can’t break up with someone if you weren’t together in the first place.”

“Right…”

“I’m just saying that this is casual. This is casual, right? It can be?”

“It’s whatever you want,” he said, sincerity flooding his eyes. “If you never want to talk about it again, if you never want to do it again, that’s what we’ll do.”

“We can’t undo it, and I definitely don’t want to  _ not _ do it again.” She fought back a blush, holding the sheets a little tighter against her chest. “Can we just agree to not put a label on it? Can we keep it to ourselves for now?”

He considered her words for a moment, then slowly nodded. “I think that’s a good idea. Just promise me one thing?”

“Sure.”

“Whatever happens, however this turns out, you’ll still be my friend.”

She held a hand out, propping her elbow on her knee. “Pinky promise.”

They sealed the deal and Arya immediately felt a weight lift from her shoulders.

“I need a shower,” she announced, tossing the sheets off her body and strutting towards the bedroom door with faux confidence. “Are you coming?”

Her water bill was going to suck.


	4. Almost (Sweet Music)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't overthink it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics and Chapter Title by Hozier.

_ I wouldn't know where to start _

_ "Sweet Music" playing "In The Dark" _

_ Be still "My Foolish Heart," _

_ Don't ruin this on me _.

Monday night found Gendry back at Arya’s. It was the first time he had been back since Friday and he hadn’t been sure what to expect when she texted him to see if he wanted to do homework together. She’d invited him to a party with her and a few friends on Saturday but he declined. He had worked a nine hour shift and really just wanted to wash the grime off his face and try to make a dent in the homework that was already piling up. She had been sort of radio silent on Sunday, which was fine with Gendry. He had ended up at the kitchen table doing homework with Jon for most of the day and was having a hard enough time trying to not look guilty without her texting him and making it harder.

“Where were you the other night? I didn’t hear you come home,” Jon had said at one point, barely glancing up from the overpriced textbook he was holding.

“Arya’s,” he admitted. There was nothing inherently suspicious about him being there, especially not lately, but he _ had _ been there for a long time. Frankly, things had devolved pretty quickly in the shower and they’d barely made it back to her room for a second round. “We binged that new docuseries on the Massachusets Murderers.”

“Of course Arry would make you watch that. How was it?”

He had tried desperately to remember literally anything about it but all that kept coming to mind was the image of Arya straddling his lap as some old detective droned on about the many false leads they’d had in the case. 

“It was more her taste,” he finally said, relieved when Jon chuckled at his sister’s morbid interests and told Gendry he hoped he had at least gotten something to eat out of the deal. 

Gendry only _ just _ managed to not choke on his energy drink.

And that had apparently been the end of it. Jon went back to his assigned reading and Gendry had turned his focus back to the work on his laptop. Now as he sat on Arya’s couch with a sheet of unfinished equations in front of him, he wondered if he should mention it to her. Had Jon already said something?

“Aren’t you dying? You’ve been doing math for almost two hours,” Arya said, glancing at the sheets he had strewn across the coffee table with disdain. 

“You know engineering is pretty much all math and physics, right?” 

“Yeah, but math is the worst. Why would you do that to yourself?”

“I want to build things better,” he said, shrugging casually. “I’m sick of fixing other people’s stuff. I want to make my own.”

She smirked, giving him a sidelong glance that said that she was teasing. “Nerd.”

“I know for a fact that you got an A in calculus, so don’t act like I’m the only one, Miss Stark.”

“It was an A minus actually. And for the record, Mr. Waters, I happen to think nerds are cool.”

“So now math is cool?”

“No, math still sucks. You’re cool though.”

The comment made Gendry smile more than it should have so he tried to compose his features as he turned back to the sheets in front of him. Arya, as usual, had her phone broadcasting music over the network of speakers around her apartment. As the last song ended one of his favorites started playing, making him hum along to the lyrics.

_ Look who's digging their own grave _

_ That is what they all say... _

“You like Bastille?” Arya didn’t seem surprised per se, just curious.

“I don’t have a choice. Jon listens to them all the time. You know they’ll be in town next week?”

“Yeah, I know. Their show is on my birthday and I couldn’t get tickets,” she pouted. “Who sells out a Thursday night show?”

Gendry didn’t respond right away, mulling over his next move before he made it. “If you want to go, I may or may not have a pair of tickets…” 

She closed her laptop to glare at him. “Don’t you play with me, Gendry Waters. Either you do or you don’t.”

“I do,” he smirked. “I know a guy that works at the theater and called in a favor to get tickets for me and Jon. I was just going to scalp them since he bailed on me, but if you want to go…”

“Do I want to go see my favorite band on my birthday? Are you joking?”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“How much for the tickets?”

Gendry was shaking his head before she had even finished speaking. “I’m not letting you pay for them. Consider it a birthday gift.”

“You can’t just _ give _ them to me. They had to be expensive.”

He didn’t let the unspoken ‘I can afford it and you need the money,’ hang in the air. He had been making his own way for years now and learned how to tuck money away for little luxuries such as these. He didn’t need her pity. 

“It’s your birthday. I _ insist _.” 

She heaved a sigh that he knew was overdramatized. “Fine, but you’re coming with me. And I won’t take no for an answer either.”

“Alright,” he threw his hands up in surrender. “So, is this like a date or…”

Arya rolled her eyes and stood up before tossing a leg over his hips to straddle him. “Let’s not overthink it.” And then she was kissing him, running her hands over his shoulders, and he forgot to worry.

* * *

And that was how he found himself standing in front of his bedroom mirror the next Thursday, fretting over his outfit like a teenage girl. _ Don’t overthink it _, he told himself for the hundredth time. He decided to keep it casual and toss on his favorite jeans. It was freezing outside but the concert was sure to be packed so he dressed in layers. First a fitted black tee, then a black and yellow flannel, then his leather jacket.

“You going out again?” Jon was sprawled out on the couch with a massive textbook across his lap when Gendry walked into the living area. 

“It’s the twenty-third,” Gendry said by way of explanation. Jon clearly wasn’t connecting the dots. “The Bastille concert?”

“Oh! Right! You’re going?”

Gendry shrugged, getting together his shoes and his wallet. “Didn’t want to waste the tickets just because you have a test tomorrow.” If anything Jon should be happy. He was always pestering Gendry to get out more and be social.

“You found someone else to go with then?”

He at least had the decency to feel a pang of guilt about it. “I do have other friends,” Gendry said, trying to sound as lighthearted as possible.

“Other friends, or that girl you’ve been screwing?”

Gendry nearly dropped his keys. 

“Oh, you thought I didn’t know about that?” Jon was doing a terrible job hiding his smirk. “You really expected me to believe you’re hanging out with my little sister every other night? I saw those claw marks on your back last week. I _ know _that’s not from sitting on the couch watching documentaries with Arry.”

He tried to tamp down the growing panic in his gut. So Jon knew he was sleeping with someone, but _ clearly _ didn’t know who. He could work with this…

“I just wasn’t ready to tell you,” Gendry said.

Jon held his hands up defensively. “I get it, that’s your business. Just tell me one thing?”

“Depends what it is.”

“Is it serious?”

Gendry swallowed. “It’s new,” he said after a beat. “It’s nice though, and I’m trying not to fuck it up before it has the chance to _ get _ serious.”

Jon thought about it for a moment then grinned. “I’m happy for you, man. And I can’t wait to meet her… when you’re ready.”

“Thanks,” Gendry said, trying to match his roommate’s tone. “I better get going before traffic starts to get bad. We still have that thing with your parents tomorrow for Arya’s birthday?”

“Yeah, seven o’clock. And don’t forget to text her today or she’ll kick your ass tomorrow night.”

“I’m on it,” he said, stepping out into the hall and shutting the door behind him. He had already texted her that morning, and been texting her all day, but Jon didn’t need to know that.

It had started to snow by the time he pulled up to Arya’s apartment building and Gendry was hesitant to leave the warmth of his truck. He texted her to let her know that he had arrived and waited for her response before dashing to the door and waiting for the buzz that told him it was unlocked. 

“It’s open,” she called when he knocked on the door to her unit. Gendry let himself in and was immediately met with the familiar sights and sounds of Arya’s apartment. Music floated through her small network of speakers and some delicious smell was wafting through the space. 

“Arya?”

“I’ll just be a minute,” she said, voice drifting from behind the bathroom door, which hung slightly open. “There's chicken Alfredo in the oven if you want some.”

He tossed his shoes in the closet by the door and made his way into the kitchen to silence the growling of his stomach. He’d been planning to pick up something on the way to the show but this was sure to be way better.

“How do you do that?”

“What?”

“Always know when I’m hungry.”

“Easy,” she said swinging the bathroom door open and stepping out. “I just always assume you’re hungry.”

If he hadn’t just set his plate on the counter, he might have dropped it. 

A pair of fishnets wound their way up her legs, disappearing beneath a deep red corduroy skirt that fell to her mid-thigh. Her shirt, an old tee from one of the band’s earlier tours, had almost certainly been Jon’s at some point. Arya had chopped it up nicely and rolled the sleeves to make it suit her smaller, more feminine frame. She also had on more jewelry than he’d ever seen her wear before — earrings in each of the seven piercings in her ears, a few simple rings, a small stack of bracelets on her right arm, and a velvet choker around her pale throat. 

She’d tucked her hair up into a pair of messy buns and even put on a fair amount of makeup, which struck Gendry as important. She hardly ever wore any, and certainly never this much. Her eyes were surrounded by a smudge of gunmetal and charcoal that made here irises look even more stormy than usual and her lips were a shocking shade of maroon that matched her skirt.

All in all, she looked like she had just stepped out of one of high school Gendry’s wet dreams.

“You’ve literally seen me naked on multiple occasions and _ this _ is what gets you all wound up?” Arya raised an eyebrow. _ Fuck _ , he realized with a start, _ how long have I been standing here staring like a moron? _

“You look...good.” 

“That’s not what you were going to say,” she accused.

“I was going to say you looking fucking hot, but it felt degrading,” Gendry admitted, leaning down to kiss her.

Arya stopped him with a hand on his forehead. “Oh no you don’t! I spent forty-five minutes on FaceTime with Sansa getting this shit perfect. I’m not letting you mess it up before we even get to the concert.”

_ Damn it. _

“What about after the concert?”

“_ After _, you can smudge my lipstick all you want,” she purred.

Oh, this was going to be a long night…

When both of them were fed and ready they headed out the door. “You’re going to freeze to death,” Gendry said as they descended the stairs of her building. “You should go back and get a jacket.”

“I’m fine,” Arya said, following him to his truck and hopping into the passenger's seat. “Hi Frankentruck,” she added, petting the dashboard affectionately. 

“Do you have to call it that?”

“Face it, your truck is the Frankenstein’s monster of vehicles.”

She had a point. He’d saved the old truck from the scrapyard his freshman year and it had been a labor of love ever since. The body and interior had both been in good condition, but he’d basically had to rebuild the engine from the ground up, piecing it together with a patchwork of salvaged parts and new ones he’d had delivered to the shop alongside customer orders. It had given him a few small problems over the years, but it had never been beyond repair.

He blasted the heat as they navigated to the concert venue, listening to Arya talk about her week. She had two writing assignments due the next week, a Spanish project to work on, a story due for the school newspaper, and an MMA club meeting to plan. Gendry told her about the internships he was applying for, though he tried not to betray his self-doubt. The one he wanted most of all was so competitive, he had almost discarded his application on multiple occasions. 

“Stormbreaker, right?”

Gendry nodded. “Ten weeks working under some of the best engineers in the country. If they think I’ve got potential, they’ll even pay for me to get my master’s degree.”

“If you promise to work for them, of course.”

He shrugged. “It’s a five year contract, yeah. They have facilities all over the country, though. I could move back to LA, or stay in New York, or go to Chicago or Detroit or Dallas… “

“The world would be your oyster, basically.”

“Basically. I’d have to actually get the internship, though.”

“They’d be stupid to pass you up,” she assured him. “How are things going at the shop?”

“Same as always,” he shrugged. “Just doing oil changes, fixing broken heaters, and putting on snow tires.”

“People always wait until the last minute, don’t they?”

Gendry hummed in agreement. “Arry, there’s something I have to tell you.”

She shot him a worried look. “That’s never a good way to start a conversation.”

“Jon knows I’ve been...seeing someone.”

She balked for a moment, apparently digesting that information. “Does he know that it’s me?”

“No, thankfully. I can’t imagine what he would have done. He saw my back last week and figured out what all those scratches were from, but I guess he thinks I’m using you as a cover.”

“Well who did you tell him it was?”

“Nobody. I just said it was really new and pretty casual and he seemed alright with letting it drop for a while.”

“Ha. We’ll see how long that lasts,” Arya snorted. “You know my family is nosy as hell. And that includes Jon, even if he acts like he’s above it all.”

“Well, what should I say if he brings it up again?”

“Just play it cool,” Arya instructed, as if Gendry had ever been ‘cool’ about anything in his life. “Tell him it’s not serious and he doesn’t need to worry about it.”

“It’s not serious and he doesn’t need to worry about it. Okay, got it.”

He offered to drop Arya off at the door of the venue so she wouldn’t have to walk around outside in her skirt and t-shirt. To his surprise, she actually accepted and promised to wait for him in the lobby. When he had finished parking and walked back to the building, he searched for her amongst the densely-packed crowd, eventually tracking her down near a t-shirt booth. Gendry reached for her hand to keep from losing her in the crowd and Arya surprised him by letting him do it, even squeezing his fingers at random as they wove through the masses. 

They found their seats at the end of row L and Gendry draped his jacket over the back of his chair before ducking back out to the lobby to grab them each a beer. The line was as long as could be expected, but he eventually made it to the front. With the drinks in hand, he carefully navigated back to their seats, searching the rapidly growing crowd for her dark hair. 

When he spotted her she was sitting in her chair with an uncomfortable smile plastered on her face as some blond twenty-something blocked the aisle by leaning against the seats in front of them. Arya absentmindedly nodded at whatever the guy had said and shot Gendry a pleading look as he came into her line of vision.

“Sorry I took so long,” he announced a bit louder than was strictly necessary. “The line was insane.”

The guy turned, smile fading as he looked Gendry up and down. They were about the same height, but Gendry guessed he had about twenty pounds of muscle more than the more lanky newcomer. He raised an eyebrow and the stranger stepped back to let him in the aisle without protest. _ Good _ , he thought _ , learn to take a hint dude. _

“That’s okay,” Arya said, her face brightening as he shuffled between the rows of seats. She thanked him as she lifted the cup from his hand and set it in the cup holder between their seats before wrapping her arms around herself. 

“Are you cold? I knew I should have gone back to get you a jacket,” he chuckled, already setting down his drink and unbuttoning his flannel. He was warm from standing in the packed lobby anyway. Gendry pretended not to notice the guy from earlier staring at them from his seat across the aisle as he shrugged the garment off and draped it over Arya’s shoulders. 

The flannel fell halfway down her thighs and he had to help her roll the sleeves up so that her fingertips could poke out the ends of them. She should have looked silly, but the image of her standing there in his shirt and a pair of fishnets just made his gut do an uncomfortable swooping thing. 

“Thanks,” she grinned, toying with one of the buttons. “This is really soft.” 

He wasn’t sure what to say, or if he should say anything at all. Luckily the opening act chose that exact moment to come out and introduce themselves, so Gendry took his seat and started sipping from his beer and trying not to think about how unbelievable Arya looked with his flannel hanging open over her skirt and t-shirt.

She wasn’t giving him much of a break though, because instead of sitting in her perfectly good seat sext to him, she had decided instead to sit right on his lap as the opening band started strumming the first few chords of one of their songs. She had her legs tossed diagonally across his own and an arm thrown over his shoulder and Gendry was finding it hard to focus on anything else.

Arya leaned her head in close to his, and let her breath ghost over his ear as she whispered a proposition to him. “Be my boyfriend? Just for the night?”

He couldn’t be sure if it was the fishnets, or the feeling of her ass rubbing against his thighs, or her breathy voice in his ear, or all of them combined, but he could feel the blood in his brain quickly being diverted to… other areas.

Unable to form a coherent sentence, he simply nodded, humming his assent as the music in the performance hall grew louder. He didn’t miss the way her eyes flicked across the aisle every now and then. He didn’t dare follow her gaze, knowing well enough that he wasn’t particularly stealthy, but he could always tell if her ‘friend’ from earlier was looking their way or not based on her reaction. If he was otherwise occupied she would relax a bit against his chest and keep playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. (Who knew he was so sensitive there? His dick, apparently.) If their pal was looking their way she would rest her free hand against his chest and lean in closer to murmur into his ear again. 

“They’re pretty good, don’t you think?” She had asked at one point, though Gendry had only been able to grind out a terse sound of agreement.

It felt like an eternity before the band said their good nights and headed offstage and Arya rose from his lap to cheer with the rest of the crowd. The place was well and truly packed now and the noise was deafening when Bastille finally took the stage. 

The concert passed in a haze of color and sound and cell phone flashlights swaying in tandem. Arya stood beside him, singing along to her favorite songs. When the band finally said their goodbyes and exited the stage, it was to racious applause. Some people started clearing out, but some of the more rowdy audience members began chanting for an encore. 

Arya asked if they could stay a few minutes, just in case. The choice paid off when the lead singer returned to the stage, sitting himself down on an amp and treating them to an acoustic version of one of the songs off the band’s first album.

Arya was beaming as he strummed the first chords and Gendry remembered that it was one of her favorites. By the time he reached the chorus she was singing along again, though her voice was swallowed up by the others in the crowd.

“You have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve… And I have always buried them deep beneath the ground… Dig them up; let's finish what we've started… Dig them up, so nothing's left untouched…”

When the show was over for good, he took her hand again and led her through the fray in the lobby.

“I’ll go get the truck and pick you up at the door,” he said, trying to release her hand.

“No, I’ll go with you. It’s already crazy out there,” the said, pointing to where cars were already lining the driveway.

“You’ll freeze.”

“I’ll be fine,” she insisted.

Gendry figured there was little point in arguing with her. At least she had his flannel to keep her a little warmer as they stepped out into the cold New York night. 

* * *

Gendry blasted the heat as soon they were inside the truck and waited for the cab to warm up before he tried to put it into drive. Cars were trickling down from the fourth and fifth floors of the parking structure and he would have to wait for a chance to pull out into the slowly moving train of vehicles. He glanced over to see Arya warming her hands in front of one of the vents.

_ How can someone be so painfully adorable and unbearably hot at the same time? _

“Happy birthday.”

She grinned at that and leaned back in her seat. “It was. Thank you, for all of this. Definitely in my top three best birthdays.”

“Only top three? I’m curious what one and two were,” he teased, letting the warm air wash over his own hands.

“Number two is my sixth birthday. My dad bought me a pony without asking my mom and I’m pretty sure she almost filed for divorce.”

“You’re kidding,” he laughed, trying to picture a tiny, round-faced version of Arya squealing over a shaggy little pony. The mental image was so adorable he almost didn’t want to knock the memory down a spot on her list.

“I’m serious! You can ask Jon. His name was Charlie and my dad had to drive me thirty minutes to the stables four times a week for the next five years as punishment. I only got to keep him because my mom thought it would teach me responsibility and her richy-rich book club friends thought it was _ very posh _ that I took riding lessons.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t know about this.” He shook his head, grinning. “What was number one?”

“My sweet sixteen, back when we were living in LA. The first and last time my dad got to be in charge of planning my party. We had already done a little party over Christmas break with the family, but my dad got it in his head that I needed one of those insane MTV parties with all of my friends. He went the full nine yards: DJ, strobe lights, glow sticks, three-tier cake. He rented out an entire hotel ballroom for it.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah… it was a hell of a party, but stuff like that has always been Sansa’s thing. I had fun, but I didn’t really like being the center of attention, you know? I was sort of glad when it was over.”

“Why is that your favorite birthday, then?”

“My dad pulled me aside after everyone had cleared out and took me out on the dancefloor. He gave me this speech about how proud he was of me, and all the things he loved about me, and then he asked me if I would dance with him because I was growing up so fast and he was scared that I’d be a grown woman the next time he got the chance. So, of course I did, even though all the lights were out and we didn’t have any music. He hummed our song and we just sort of swayed together for a while. It was… peaceful.”

He’d always known Arya had a special bond with her dad, but the way her face softened at the memory made Gendry’s heart melt just a little. He couldn’t even find it in himself to be jealous. Even if he’d known his own father, he knew there was no way they would have had that strong of a bond. 

He managed to drag his gaze from the soft smile on her face long enough to notice that the traffic in the garage had cleared up a bit and pulled the truck out of the parking spot.

“What’s your song?” He asked as they crawled their way towards the exit.

He could’ve sworn she blushed a little. “Johnny Cash, ‘You Are My Sunshine.’”

“Is that where the tattoo comes from?” He glanced at her right arm, where he knew there was a tiny sun tattoo just below the crook of her elbow, though it was covered by the sleeve of his flannel.

“Partly. When Sansa and I were at each other’s throats as kids, my dad would always say ‘you and your sister are as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood runs through both your veins.’ We eventually outgrew the fighting but we always remembered that. Sansa took me to a tattoo parlor in LA a week after I turned eighteen and we got inked together. The sun for me and the moon for her. I do believe it was the most rebellious thing my perfect pretty sister has ever done.”

The conversation shifted as they made their way back to Arya’s apartment. She told him about Sansa’s recent breakup and expressed her relief despite Sansa’s apparent heartbreak. He wasn’t exactly surprised. Arya had hated Joffrey since Sansa had started dating him four years ago.

Eventually he pulled into the lot out front of her building and put the truck in park.

“You want a drink?” Her eyes were asking something else but Gendry nodded in response to both the spoken and unspoken questions and followed her inside.

She mixed them each a vodka cran and placed one in his hand.

“To the birthday girl,” he said, raising his glass.

“You know it’s not technically my birthday anymore, right?”

“Everyone knows birthdays don’t end until you’ve had cake. Did you eat any cake?”

Arya took a sip of her drink. “Well, no…”

“Then it’s still your birthday.”

He watched her tongue dart out between her lips, swiping away a stray drop of cranberry juice that blended in with the color of her lips.

“The concert’s over,” she said, though Gendry couldn’t figure out why.

“Yeah, it is.”

“You’re allowed to mess up my makeup now.”

He didn’t have to be told twice.


	5. This Is The Last Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Families are a complicated thing, in every form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title and lyrics by The National.

_ Oh, but your love is such a swamp _

_ You don't think before you jump _

_ And I said I wouldn't get sucked in… _

_ This is the last time _

_ Oh, don't tell anyone I'm here _

_ I've got time and no one near _

The apartment was empty when Gendry got home, save for Ghost. The dog watched him shuffle around, making himself breakfast, starting a much needed load of laundry, and then grabbing a towel and heading to his bathroom for a shower. He shut the door behind himself, strippng off the tshirt, jeans, and boxers he’d put on the previous night. His flannel had been nowhere to be found when he left Arya’s place but he didn’t really mind. It looked better on her anyway.

When he had washed away what he could of the previous night he shut the water off and got out, drying himself off and wrapping the towel around his waist. When he stood in front of the sink to brush his teeth, he could see that Arya had left a pair of bright red hickeys on his chest and although they weren’t visible, he could feel the rows of slightly raised skin that her nails had left on his back and shoulders. Grinning to himself, he grabbed his discarded clothes from the floor and headed back to his room. 

“Someone’s happy this morning,” Jon remarked from the sofa, eyeing the marks on Gendry’s chest. Gendry hadn’t heard him come in, but there he sat. “Well, two people if all those marks are any indication.”

“I had a good night,” Gendry said coyly, ducking into his room and tossing his clothes in the hamper. When he had pulled on a fresh set of clothes, he walked back out to put his laundry in the dryer and start making a small lunch.

“So did you even make it to the concert, or did your new ‘friend’ distract you?” 

Gendry laughed humorlessly at his roommate. “Yes, we made it to the concert. It was a great show, in case you were wondering.”

“Mhmmm. And _ after _ the show?”

“I took her home,” Gendry said simply.

“Oh, come on! Give me _ something _ . I haven’t seen you smile this much in… well, ever. Who is this mystery girl?”   
  


“It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t matter? You, my friend, are smitten with her, whoever the hell she is.”

“I’m happy. She’s happy. We’re keeping things casual. That’s all you need to know.”

“Alright, I know when someone’s pleading the fifth,” Jon conceded. 

“Speaking of which, how did your test go?”

“At the risk of jinxing myself, I think I did pretty well.” 

Gendry tossed his lunch in a bag. “That’s great! I guess all the studying paid off.”

“Yup. Where are you going?” 

“They need me in the shop for a couple hours.”  
  
“What time do you get off? We have Arry’s birthday dinner tonight, remember?”   
  
“I know. I’ll be back in time.”

He tried to keep his mind in check as he drove to the shop and got to work on an old minivan. Try as he might, he couldn’t get the images from the morning out of his head. He had woken to pale grey light poking through the edges of Arya’s curtains, illuminating the room just enough for him to make her out in the darkness. He hadn’t meant to spend the night, but somehow a short rest had turned into a deep sleep and when he had woken it was to the sound of his phone chiming with a text from his boss. 

He considered tossing the damn thing in the fishtank when he looked down to see Arya. Her head was pillowed on his chest, one arm tossed over his abdomen and one leg tangled up with his as she slept. Her hair was wild and the makeup she hadn’t taken off was smudged around her eyes. 

She looked beautiful.

_ I could wake up to this every day _, he’d thought to himself, heartbeat stuttering when he realized exactly what that meant.

In short, he was so totally fucked.

“Waters, you still in there?”

Gendry shook his head, as if he could clear it like an etch-a-sketch. “Yeah, sorry. What did you need?”

His boss gave him a funny look but didn’t press the issue, asking instead for the keys to a mini cooper that had needed a breakline replaced.

Gendry handed them over and tried to focus on his work, but the images of the previous night kept coming back to him. He could still hear her breathy little sighs and sweet moans in his ear. If he let himself, he could feel her fingers scraping against his skin, nails biting into his back as she cried out into the darkness of her bedroom. Fuck, he could still taste her…

By the time he finally managed to clock out and head home, he had replayed the previous night a hundred times.

“How dressed up do I need to be for this?”

Jon looked up from where he was wrapping an Amazon box in Christmas light wrapping paper at the coffee table. “It’s not that fancy. Jeans should be okay, just don’t wear a T-shirt.”

Gendry nodded, ducking into the bathroom to freshen up before he changed. Once he had shaved, tamed his hair, and scrubbed all the grease from his hands, he walked back to his room to dig up an appropriate outfit. He eventually settled on a pair of dark jeans and a sweater that Shireen had bought him for Christmas the previous month.

He pulled on a pair of shoes and his leather jacket before tucking the gift he’d gotten her into his jacket pocket and following Jon out the door. They took Jon’s sedan, for which Gendry was grateful. It was stupid, but he was paranoid that Jon would somehow _ know _ that Arya had been in his truck the night before. 

“Ygritte ditched you? And here I was, thinking you guys were at the meeting the family stage,” he said, mostly just to get a rise out of Jon. 

“Her family is… complicated,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road as he flicked on his turn signal. “I thought it might be best to ease her into the insanity.”

Honestly, Gendry could understand. He liked Jon’s family, but as someone who had been an only child for most of his life, it could be a bit overwhelming to be thrown into the deep end of the Stark family madness. “I can’t blame you there. Who’s coming tonight?”

“I’m not sure. Rickon was texting me all week about how he was going to get out of school early to drive up, so he and Bran are probably both guaranteed. I don’t know what Robb’s class schedule is this semester, but he’ll come if he can. Theon… I have no idea. I can never keep track of him. He could be in LA, or Toronto, or London. Who knows?”

Gendry nodded, trying to mentally keep track of Jon’s many family members. Bran and Rickon were both still at home in Brookville until they finished High School, Robb was enrolled at Columbia for his MBA, and Theon, their foster brother, was some sort of internet celebrity. Gendry wasn’t exactly sure what he did but it sure as hell paid well. He had tagged along to a party at Theon’s loft in the city with Jon and Arya the previous summer and nearly dropped his jaw on the floor.

“No Sansa?”

“No, she just got back to school. She won’t come home until spring break at the earliest.”

Sansa and Arya had lived in LA with Mr. Stark for a few years while he looked after his friend’s company when the man’s health had begun to fail. Arya had returned to New York as soon as she could to attend Cornell with Jon, but Sansa had stayed in California to study Art History and Dance at UCLA. She usually only came back to New York for Christmas break, so Gendry had never gotten to know her very well.

“I figured as much. Don’t your parents hate having her so far away? Davos and Marya are always trying to get me to move back to the valley.”

Jon just shrugged and checked his rear view mirror. “I think it just is what it is, you know? She always wanted to live in the land of eternal sunshine, and she’s sort of got her own life out there now. Besides, she’s got Jeyne and a whole house full of sorority sisters to watch out for her. It’s not like she’s all alone.” He paused as he turned into the parking lot of the restaurant and searched for an open spot.

Gendry could easily spot the Starks’ big white SUV amongst the other vehicles in the lot, but Arya’s Jeep was nowhere to be found. Jon circled around, looking for a good spot to park. “Can you text Arry and see if she’s here yet?”

Gendry fished his phone out of his pocket and typed out a message.

** _Gendry: You on your way?_ **

** _Arya: Leaving now. Be there in 10._ **

** _Gendry: Cool. So… side hug or should we just kiss in front of your whole family when you get here?_ **

** _Arya: I was actually hoping you’d just fuck me right on the table. I put a skirt on and everything._ **

** _Gendry: I did NOT need that mental image while your brother is a foot away from me._ **

** _Arya: You’re welcome! ;) see you soon._ **

Gendry tucked the phone back in his pocket and tried to rein in his wayward imagination. Thankfully Jon was there to shove the thoughts from his head._ I’m going to hell for all of this _, he thought fleetingly.

“Is she here?”

Gendry shook his head. “Just leaving now. She said she’s ten minutes away.”

“Alright, we won’t wait out here for her then.”

Jon managed to find a recently vacated space just down the row from his parents’ car. Gendry waited for him to lock the vehicle, then followed Jon into the restaurant, holding the door for him while he carried the box he’d been wrapping earlier. Their group wasn’t hard to find between the sound of six people all trying to get a word in edgewise and Theon’s neon Hawaiian shirt. The guy certainly had a distinctive sense of style, Gendry had to give him that. Robb was the closest to the door and the first to greet them when they arrived.

“Get ready for the speech,” he warned as Gendry clapped him on the back. He didn’t have to ask what Jon’s brother meant -- it was the same one they all got every time Catelyn Stark felt she hadn’t had enough chances to feed them lately. Ironic, considering the woman herself was quite slender. 

Sure enough, when she released Jon and turned on him, the familiar exchange began. “Gendry! So good to see you again. Aren’t you just as handsome as ever? So skinny though! Doesn’t he look thin to you, Ned?”

“He looks fine, Cat. Leave the poor boy alone,” Eddard Stark chuckled. The man extended his hand and Gendry shook it, remembering to be firm but not aggressive. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You as well, sir.”

“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Ned?”

“At least one more, sir.”

He moved away to greet Bran and Rickon, but he could feel Arya’s father watching him. _ He knows, _ his brain screamed. _ He knows I slept with his precious baby girl and he’s plotting my murder as we speak. _ He had thought Jon would be hardest to hide their arrangement from, but apparently Eddard Stark possessed some sort of supernatural talent for being able to tell when someone had defiled his little angel. Gendry tried to think mundane thoughts, anything unsexy that would throw Mr. Stark off his scent.

Blessedly, the waitress arrived to take their drink orders, prompting them to sit down in the open seats on the other end of the table. No sooner had she left than three entirely separate conversations began, each one muddling together with the next. He had grown used to the chaos that was Jon’s family with relative ease, having spent more than a few Thanksgivings, Easters, and spring breaks at their estate. In fact, he sort of loved the insanity of it all.

“How’s this semester been so far? Jon said your indoor soccer team is undefeated,” Gendry said, turning to Rickon.

“Hell yeah! I even got elected co-captain.”

“Alright!” Gendry high-fived him over the table. “Not bad for a freshman.”

“Thanks. It’s sorta just nice to have something to do after school. The house is quiet with just me and Bran home.”

Gendry found that hard to believe considering Rickon’s infamous motor-mouth, but he kept that to himself.  
  
“It won’t be long until you two are empty nesters,” Robb reminded his parents, having been listening in on the conversation.

Catelyn took a dramatic sip of her wine. “Well I had hoped to have a few grandchildren to keep me occupied by then, but with you breaking up with Jeyne and this whole business between Sansa and Joffrey… well, it seems that dream is dashed, isn’t it?”

“Unless you let Ned start taking in strays again,” Theon chuckled.

“He’s got a point, Cat. Maybe it’s time we start fostering again. Lord knows we have the room,” Ned pointed out.

His wife shot him a look that could have stopped a missile. “Has it ever occurred to you,_ my love _, that I might like a bit of peace and quiet around the house? We’ve had more than twenty years of PTA meetings and dance recitals and soccer games and Muay Thai competitions. Do you know how long it’s been since I went a week without a call from the high school about one of your little hellions?”

Ned tried to hide his chuckle, though the boys assembled at the table did not. Jon had once joked that his adoptive mother spent as much time in the principal’s office as her children did. It wasn’t hard to believe when Gendry looked at the rowdy bunch around him.

“Alright, alright. You’ve made your point. Peace and quiet it is.” He grabbed his wife’s hand across the table and captured her gaze. 

Gendry couldn’t help but feel as though he should look away from the private moment. 

“And for the record,” Ned continued, “the hellions and I are very grateful for everything you do.” He pulled her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against the backs of her fingers.

“Oh, Ned…”

“Aaaaand that’s why there are so many of us,” Bran deadpanned before taking a sip of his lemonade.

“Brandon!” Catelyn didn’t look truly mad, just a little shocked.

“You’re not gonna get any peace and quiet if you go home and make another one,” Robb mumbled.

Catelyn gasped at that and narrowed her eyes at her firstborn. “Robert Declan!”

“If it’s twins, there’ll be enough of us for a baseball team!” Rickon seemed oblivious to the warning looks of both his parents.

“We’re doing the baseball team?”

Everyone’s heads snapped to the source of the question to find that Arya stood behind them with a look of confusion on her face. She actually had worn a black corduroy skirt, (which Gendry tried to block from his thoughts) though she had no makeup on and her hair was pulled back in a pair of French braids. 

The group broke out into a chorus of “Arya” and “there’s the birthday girl!” Gendry hung back as Arya greeted everyone in turn, lingering for a moment in her father’s arms before turning to him. “Hey stranger,” she smirked.

“Happy belated birthday.”

She reached up to hug him around the neck and Gendry realized she was toying with him as she pressed her body against the length of his. “Actually, I heard somewhere that birthdays don’t end until the honoree has eaten cake.” 

“Really?”

“Really.”

Dinner passed in the same chaotic haze that every meal with the Starks did. Gendry tried to keep his comments general and avoid mentioning anything that might put him and Arya in the same place at the same time. If her father was already onto them, it wouldn’t be long until her brothers caught on too.

Their waitress came to clear away their dishes and Robb suggested that Arya open presents while they waited on dessert. Rickon gave her his gift first, a wooden pencil holder that he’d made in his woodshop class at school and painstakingly burned her initials into. Bran presented her with books on photojournalism and reporting. Robb had brought a gift card to her favorite sporting goods store, and Jon had presented her with a home physical therapy kit.

“Sam says it’s the same stuff they use at hospitals,” Jon said, referring to his and Gendry’s former roommate who was in his first year of medical school at Duke.

“Thanks! It’s been a while since I’ve had a decent sparring partner, you know. If you’d come give me a decent fight after classes on Friday, I might have a reason to use this stuff.”

“I’d love that,” Jon grinned.

“Mine next,” Theon demanded, handing over an envelope with her name scribbled in it in black marker.

“No way! Haim tickets?”

“_ And _ backstage passes. I know a guy who knows a guy,” he shrugged. “Unfortunately, the show is the same week as VidCon, so I can’t take you. I’m sure you can find someone else to go with though, and you can totally use my apartment to crash in afterwards.”

“Maybe there’s a boy from school you’d like to invite,” Catelyn suggested.

“Or a girl,” Bran added.

“Or a me,” Jon piped up, sounding hopeful. 

“I’m asking Meera,” she said with finality. “This is her favorite band.”

Arya’s parents presented their gift next: a vintage camera to add to her collection. Arya was practically bouncing in her seat, gushing about the condition of it. That just left Gendry holding out the little box he had brought.

Arya pulled away the ribbon and tore the cardboard open, tipping the box's contents into her hand. “A pen,” she said trying to muster up more enthusiasm than she was obviously feeling.

“Hold the grip and pull the other end.”

Arya did as he instructed, revealing a narrow blade hidden beneath the exterior of the false pen. “A knife!”

“Nooo,” her brothers cried in unison, much to their parents’ confusion. Gendry and Arya laughed along with the rest at the perfectly timed Vine reference. 

“Thank you, Gendry. This is so cool!”

“Glad you like it. I saw it at that metalworking show in LA and I knew you needed one.”

Arya examined the blade with the same rapt attention she had given the camera, balancing it on the end of a finger and familiarizing herself with the weight of it.

“What is it they say about the pen and the sword?” Robb chuckled at his own joke and Arya put away her new weapon just in time for dessert to be placed in front of her. 

Gendry was halfway through his slice of cheesecake when he excused himself to the restroom, buying himself a few moments of quiet as he went about his business in the empty men’s room. He had just tossed his paper towel in the trash when the door swung open and Theon walked in.

“Waters, there you are!”

“Theon,” Gendry nodded in acknowledgement before moving towards the door.

Theon stopped him with a hand on Gendry’s much broader chest. “So… does Jon know you’ve been fucking our baby sister yet?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Theon chuckled. He had always been the most lighthearted of Arya’s brothers, except for maybe Rickon. “_ Right _ . You’ve just been making bedroom eyes at each other all night as _ friends _.”

_ Fuck, they were so caught. _

“It’s that obvious?”

Theon let out another of his mirthful laughs. “Only to me. But I’m guessing by your reaction that it’s supposed to be a secret?”

“It’s not a _ secret _,” Gendry said a little too defensively. “It’s just… not really anyone else’s business.”

Theon tipped his head from side to side, as if he were letting that wash back and forth over his brain. “I agree. And I think Robb might even see it that way too, once he gets past the initial weirdness, but Jon… well, Jon stills sees her as little baby Arry.”

“He’s gonna kill me, isn’t he?” Gendry knew the truth, had known it deep down for a long time, but had pushed it away. It was easy to do when Arya was sitting next to him on the sofa laughing, or writhing and moaning at the ends of his fingertips. But in the harsh lighting of the restaurant bathroom, the truth was a lot harder to cast aside.

His relationship with Arya could destroy his relationship with Jon, and the longer he waited, the worse it would get.

“He just might try,” Theon confirmed. “I don’t know everything that’s happened between you and Arya, but I do know that if you’re not one hundred percent certain about being with her, you need to call it off.”

“Is this the part where you threaten me?”

Theon let out a little chuckle. “We both know I don’t need to do that. Arya will take your hand off the second you set it out of line. No, this is the part where I warn you that Arya spooks easily. If you’re not ready to play the long game to be with her, jump ship now. Arya’s not scared of much, but she’ll run if she thinks you want to tie her down.”

“And how would you know that?” Gendry didn’t bother trying to hide the annoyance in his voice.

“Did you really think she talked to Jon or Sansa about her love life? Hell, as far as Jon knows, she’s still a virgin.”

“Look, I appreciate the advice, but this is between me and Arya.”

Theon held his hands up in surrender. “And I get that. Look, I like you, and I think you could be good for her, but you needed to know that you’re dangerously close to the point of no return.”

“Well, now I know.”

“Now you know,” Theon agreed, stepping aside so Gendry could continue towards the door.

When he returned to the table, Rickon was excitedly recounting the events of his last game for everyone assembled. 

“... and then I passed it to Lyanna and she faked out the defender and kicked the ball like fifty feet into the net!”

“She was six feet from the goal, at most,” Bran corrected.

Rickon pressed on with his story as Gendry finished his cheesecake, trying to hide his smirk at the youngest Stark’s dramatic recounting of the events. “And then the other team was like ‘whaaaaaat’ but I was like ‘hell yeah, that’s my best friend!’ It was so badass!”

“Rickon,” Catelyn began in a warning tone. Gendry turned away from the exchange to check his phone under the table. Arya had sent him a text just a few minutes earlier.

** _Arya: Jon got a booty call so I’m going to drive you home. Unless you want to come hang out at my place? ;)_ **

Gendry licked his lips. God, he needed to stop whatever this was with her. He was in way too deep already and his conversation with Theon had only proven his worst fears: this mattered more to him than it did to her. He needed to rip off the bandage.

_ One last time _, he thought to himself as he typed a response.

** _Gendry: You know… I think I left a notebook at your apartment. I should really go pick it up…_ **

** _Arya: Can’t study without it, I’m sure._ **

It wasn’t long before everyone was saying their goodbyes and bundling up against the cold. Most of the Stark clan was headed to a nearby hotel for the night, but Arya and Jon had made their excuses for heading home. Gendry helped Arya pack her presents into the back of her car before hugging her mother goodbye and shaking her father’s hand once more.

Ned gave him another long, unsettling look and Gendry was _ almost _ relieved that he had decided to end the arrangement with Arya. If it meant her dad stopped looking at him like he was a puzzle with missing pieces, it might be half worth it. At least, that’s what he told himself as they drove down the road with one of Arya’s playlists blasting through the speakers of her car.

Gendry helped her carry her gifts upstairs once they got back to her place. Arya got to work finding a place for everything while Gendry simply watched, waiting to jump in if she needed something from a high shelf.

“You know you didn’t have to get me anything,” she said, carefully arranging her new camera alongside the rest of her collection on top of the storage unit in her living room. “Especially after last night.”

“It would have looked weird if I didn’t. Besides, I had already bought it before we decided to go to the concert together.”

She turned around to face him. “Well then, I guess I’ll just have to come up with some way to thank you.”

_ One last time _ , he thought to himself as she stalked towards him with a dark hunger in her eyes. _ One last time. _

He repeated it like a mantra when she stood up on her toes and kissed him, letting his hands explore her body and map out every inch. He wanted to commit every curve to memory. Her kisses grew more desperate as her hands crept down his chest, gliding over his abdomen until her fingers collided with the waistband on his jeans.

_ One last time _, he thought as she gracefully lowered herself to her knees and freed his cock, stroking him from base to tip until he was almost painfully hard. She didn’t waste a single second in taking him in her mouth and Gendry was pretty sure the moan that escaped his mouth could be heard by the whole damn building. 

“Fuck, Arya… that’s… _ fuck _.”

Arya let out a sound that might have been a giggle or a gag. All Gendry knew was that it shot pleasure straight up his spine. 

_ One last time _, he reminded himself as her tongue teased him into a frenzy.

“Arya,” he begged, though he wasn’t sure what for. “Arya, please…”

She slowly pulled away, releasing him in order to look up at him with a flush over her skin. “I’m not done thanking you,” she said innocently.

He fingered one of her braids, then tugged the end of it until she was standing up. He didn’t miss the little moan she tried to hide, or the way she leaned into the pain. God, she was gonna be his undoing.

“You like that?” He tugged the other braid and watched her bite her lip in response.

Arya nodded, then leaned in close and wrapped her fingers around his length, stroking him lazily while she whispered in his ear. “Can I tell you a secret? I’m not wearing any underwear.”

Gendry licked his lips. “You haven’t had panties on all night?”

She shook her head. “I was only kidding about you fucking me on the table at the restaurant but once I said it, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. I thought about sneaking off to the bathroom with you, letting you bend me over the sink and fuck me from behind,” she murmered, punctuating the thought with a firm tug on his cock. 

They’d had sex well over a dozen times by this point but she’d never done this. Sure, she made demands of him in the bedroom, but this… was a whole new level of maddening. He was ready to do exactly what she had described until he remembered that their condom stash was in her room. 

“Let me go grab a condom, and I’ll do just that.”

“You don’t need one… if you don’t want,” she said, a hint of uncertainty creeping into her voice. “I’m clean, and I have the bar,”she elaborated, raising her left arm for emphasis. 

He couldn’t be certain, but he was pretty sure the last shred of his restraint left him in that moment. Arya had barely finished her sentence before he was pushing her up against the kitchen island and shoving her skirt up her thighs. “You’re sure?” He asked, even as he dragged the head of his cock along her glistening slit.

She tossed him a look over her shoulder and nearly growled out her response. “_ Now. _And don’t be gentle.”

_ One last time _, he thought again before slipping into the divine heat of her center. 

* * *

  
  


An hour later they were curled up in her bed, both breathless and sated. Arya had curled against his side with her limbs tossed over him like she’d done the night before and Gendry knew there wasn’t a force on Earth that could have moved him from that spot in that moment. _ One last time _, he had told himself, but the truth was that he’d passed his own point of no return a long time ago.

“You’ve never told me about this,” Arya mumbled, tracing a finger along the lines of his tattoo.

“You never asked.”

“Well, I’m asking now.”

He took a deep breath. Talking about it wasn’t his strong suit, but he would try for her. “I got it on the seventh anniversary of my mom’s death. I wanted something to remember her by.”

“She liked flowers,” Arya guessed.

He nodded. “Knew everything there was to know about them. The house I grew up in was a rental with this tiny little yard. My mom asked the landlady if she could plant some flowers when we first moved in, and she told her she’d give us a discount on rent if she could actually get anything to grow. She was joking, but by the time I started school, we had the nicest front yard in the neighborhood. 

“She would be out there for hours in all types of weather, cutting back plants and pulling weeds. She taught me all the different types of flowers we had: mountain lilac, bush poppies, Cleveland sage, lupine, daisies, flannel flowers.”

He grinned, thinking of that little house with its flowery yard, always bursting with a kaleidoscope of bright colors. It hadn’t been much, and they’d never been rich, but she had never let him feel less than loved. If he closed his eyes and focused he could still remember her a few days before they’d gotten the diagnosis, leaning over a window box with her golden hair spilling over her shoulders as she sang to herself and the plants. 

_ “They grow better if you sing to them,” she had said before continuing on. “If the sky that we look upon should tumble and fall, or the mountains should crumble to the sea, I won’t cry, I won’t cry. No, I won’t shed a tear, just as long as you stand, stand by me…” _

“You still remember them all?” Arya looked up at him, pulling him from the memory.

“Yeah, all her favorites.”

“This one?” She pointed to a bloom near the edge of his chest.

“Desert mallow.”

“This one?” She moved her finger closer to his shoulder blade.

“Protea, That one was my favorite.”

“This one’s pretty,” she said, tracing over his arm to where a rock rose intertwined with a pair of gears.

“That was my mom’s favorite. It's a called a rock rose.”

Arya smiled, tracing the flower again. “You don’t talk about her much.”

“I miss her,” he said by way of explanation. 

“I can’t blame you. It sounds like she was a special person.”

Maybe Faye Waters hadn’t been the most important person in the world, but she had been to Gendry. “She was,” he smiled sadly. “She was really special.”

“I think she’d be really proud of you, you know.”

“I hope so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, so I'm trying something new and posting on Thursday night in stead of Friday morning, just to see if that works out better for people's schedules. If you like this better, or if you want to go back to the old posting schedule, let me know! As always, thanks so much for reading!


	6. To Noise Making (Sing)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gendry accepts his fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovelies! I can't believe this is my last chapter update of the year! I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who's been following this story from the first chapter, those who have been there since this was nothing but a couple of random snippets on tumblr, and those of you who take the time to comment. You guys keep me writing and I'm so grateful for this community! I have a little Christmas present going up in a few days, so keep your eyes peeled for that, and I hope to hear from you all in the new year!
> 
> Chapter title and lyrics by Hozier.
> 
> Lyrics to the Spanglish version of "Stand By Me" that Arya sings are by Prince Royce, but I recommend listening to Elliott's English version if you want a better idea of how I imagine her singing it.

_ You don't have to sing it nice, but honey sing it strong _

_ At best, you find a little remedy, at worst the world will sing along _

_ So honey sing… _

“I needed that,” Arya panted, throwing herself down on the bed next to him.

Gendry turned his head to watch her bare chest heave as they basked in the post-orgasmic glow for a moment. “That bad of a week, huh?”

It had been two weeks since her birthday dinner and thirteen days since his resolve had crumbled entirely. Was he proud of the fact that it had taken her less than twenty-four hours to change his mind? Not particularly. But he couldn’t really help it when Jon was chin-deep in reading assignments and Arya kept sending him snapchats from the gym.  _ Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, _ he had thought before making some excuse that Jon didn’t believe and grabbing his keys.

All in all, nothing had really changed, including their Friday night routine. Gendry poured drinks while Arya cooked, they ate together on the sofa and watched Netflix, or just talked about their weeks, then Gendry did the dishes and Arya did her best to distract him until the last plate was on the drying rack and he could give her his full attention.

And give her his full attention he had. Up against the kitchen island, then over the end of the sofa, then finally on top of the mattress until both of them were breathing heavily and satiated. Gendry had never done hard drugs, but he was pretty sure this was what it felt like to have an addiction. Every hit was better than the last and Arya was such a willing vice that he hardly knew what to do to quit her.

“You have no idea,” she sighed, pulling the sheets up over them and sticking herself to his side like a little leech. It had been one of the biggest surprises that had come out of their… whatever it was they were in. Arya was usually so unfazed by the cold but for some reason she liked to wriggle up next to him in bed after they had sex and steal his body heat. Gendry found it adorable, so he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He was just happy to have her weight pressed against him and the chance to trace her spine with his fingertips.

“Jon blew you off, didn’t he?”

“Twice,” she huffed indignantly. “I tried to take him out for dinner on his birthday but he already had plans with Ygritte. So I asked if he wanted to do something tonight and he said yes, then he bailed because she surprised him with a camping trip. Who goes camping in fucking February?”

“I’m sure they’ll find some way to keep warm,” he teased, pulling her a little closer.

“Ugh. And now he wants me to meet her.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

She huffed again and Gendry had to bite his cheek to keep from grinning at how cute it was. “What if I like her?”

“Great. You love Jon, and Jon loves Ygritte, so isn’t that kind of ideal?”

“What if I like her and he fucks it up and then I lose a friend over it?”

Gendry wasn’t grinning anymore. The similarities in their situations might as well have just slapped him in the face. The difference was that he and Jon already knew each other, they were already friends and if he botched things with Arya… fuck, he’d lose them both.

“Give your brother a little credit. I think he’s really serious about Ygritte.”

“He must be if he spends every waking minute with her,” Arya grumbled.

“He doesn’t spend  _ every _ waking moment with her. Law school is a whole different beast from undergrad,” Gendry reminded her. “He really is busy with classes.”

“I know, I know. I just… I miss him. We used to hang out so much last year and now it’s like we don’t even go to the same school. And he keeps blowing me off when I really need to talk to him about Sansa.”

“What’s going on with Sansa?”

“She’s taking the LSATs in June. She’s going to try to follow her dickhead ex to law school to ‘win him back’ or whatever.”

“Do you think it’ll work?”

“God, I hope not. He’s such a piece of shit. Sansa can do so much better.” She paused for a second. “I hope she gets in anyway, though. Sansa’s smarter than people give her credit for. I think she would actually make a good lawyer.”

“Did I just hear that right?”

“You know I don’t hate her,” she grumbled, giving his shoulder a half-hearted shove. “We’re just two very different people, remember?” She lifted her arm, showing off her tattoo for emphasis.

“I know, I know. I’m just teasing.”

Arya stretched beside him, skin sliding against his own. “I need a shower. Sex without a condom is messy as hell. You coming?”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” he said, watching as she shrugged and sauntered from the room. He could hear the water turn on in the bathroom and what sounded like a shampoo bottle falling from where he lay on the bed. He allowed himself another moment to bask in the pleasantly sated feeling she always left him with, then got up and began stripping the sheets from the bed. They could pull a fresh set down from the closet when they were done washing up.

It wasn’t until he was balling up her fitted sheet and tossing it in the hamper that he heard it. Curious, and finished with the task at hand, he followed the sound of Arya’s voice to the bathroom, gently pushing the door open as he stepped into the steamy room. He didn’t know the words, since she sang in what he assumed was Spanish, but he knew the melody like the back of his hand.

“Y aunque las montañas o el cielo caiga, no voy a preocuparme porque sé que tú estás, junto a mí. No lloraré, no lloraré. No, I won’t sh—”

“I didn’t peg you as the type to sing in the shower,” he said, pulling back the shower curtain to step under the water with her.

If he had snuck up on her, she didn’t let it show, just made room for him under the warm spray of the water. “What can I say? I’m multi talented.”

“Well, I never doubted that,” he chuckled and reached for the bottle of men’s body wash that had appeared next to Arya’s shampoo without comment a week or so earlier. “You’re not bad, you know.”

“Well ‘not bad’ isn’t exactly good, especially with Sansa for a sister. What took you so long? I thought you fell asleep,” she said, rinsing the shampoo out of her hair.

“I was just taking the sheets off the bed. Figured you’d want to sleep on fresh ones.”

There was a short pause as Arya rinsed her face and reached for her grapefruit face wash. “You could join me if you want. If Jon’s going to be gone, you could spend the night here.”

His mind immediately flashed back to the morning after the concert and how he’d woken up with her latched onto his side. He’d wanted to stay that day, to watch her wake up and kiss her sleep-warmed skin and fuck her slowly as the sun fought its way higher in the sky. His cock twitched at just the thought of it.

He’d wanted to stay every night since the first, but this thing between them was delicate and he worried what staying might do to it. But now she was offering,  _ asking _ him to stay. It was almost as if she knew how weak his resolve was around her. She had a hold on him that Gendry had no interest in breaking, even as it grew tighter and tighter. He would happily let it suffocate him, he decided. 

“Unless you have work tomorrow,” she added somewhat hastily, apparently misreading his hesitation. “You don’t have to, I just—”

He cut her off before she could talk herself into a corner. “I’d love to stay. I’m maxed out on hours this week, so no work. Just a shitload of homework.”

Arya rinsed her face again, then switched spots with him so he could rinse off too. “Well,” she started, fingers tracing a path up his spine and over his shoulders, “maybe I can find some way to motivate you to finish it all.”

He was about to respond when she reached around him to grasp his cock in her hand, taking him from half hard to almost painfully hard with just a few strokes. “If you’re going to make a mess of me again, you might as well do it in here,” she said, chin coming to rest on his shoulder as she rose up on her tiptoes. Her other hand gripped his shoulder to steady her as she watched him grow harder in her hand.

“Don’t tease,” he growled, thrusting up into her hand a little bit. Truth be told, if she wanted to tease him, he’d let her. She would deal with the repercussions though -- not that he thought Arya would mind. 

“Or what? You’ll spank me?” He could practically hear her quirking her eyebrow as she switched up the tempo of her strokes.

_ Maybe I will _ , he thought to himself. He’d learned that Arya enjoyed a bit of pain with her pleasure. He’d learned that he enjoyed giving it to her.

“Put your hands against the wall,” he ordered, grabbing her wrist to still her movements. “Now,” he added when she didn’t move. 

Slowly, Arya turned, bracing her palms against the tile on the wall. When she was settled, she turned her head to toss him a look over her shoulder and he knew she was thrilled for what was coming. Without warning he brought a hand down on her ass, not hard enough to really hurt her, but enough that the sound of his palm against her ass reverberated throughout the shower.

“That was for being a tease,” he said, soothing the red skin with his thumb for a moment before raising his hand again and giving the other side the same treatment.

Arya couldn’t bite back her moan this time, dropping her head as he made contact. “What was that one for?”

He ran the heel of his hand up her spine, causing her to arch her back in response as his hand made its way to the nape of her neck and grasped the hair there. God, she was the absolute embodiment of sin like this. He tried to ignore the near painful hardness of his cock as he leaned over to murmur in her ear. 

“That one was for biting your lip the first time.” 

He decided it was the perfect time to flip the script on her so he grasped himself in his free hand and began dragging the tip of his cock along her slit, occasionally bumping up against her clit just to hear her gasp and moan, then groan when he pulled away. She was unbelievably slick, though he wasn’t sure if it was from earlier or if she was just that turned on again. He let his torture go on for a minute or so, reveling in the increasingly desperate little sounds she made until she finally gave him what he wanted.

“Gendry,  _ please _ .”

He stilled completely and she groaned in frustration. “Please what, Arya?”

“ _ Please _ just fuck me already!”

With that he slammed into her, forcing Arya to brace herself harder against the shower wall. “All you had to do was ask,” he chuckled, pulling back slowly only to repeat the movement. He set a punishing pace, one hand still tangled in her wet hair and the other pressed just above hers on the shower wall as he licked and nipped his way down her neck. 

Her every shuddering breath was like chocolate to him -- something he wanted to savor for as long as he could before it melted away. He could tell how close she was from the cadence of her breathing, the pitch of her moans, and the increasing desperation of her pace. Gendry decided to reposition slightly, releasing her hair in favor of wrapping his hand around her throat. It was gentle, and he didn’t apply any pressure, just used the palm of his hand to bring her flush against the front of him as his other hand came off the wall to circle her clit. 

Her orgasm seemed to hit her fast and hard. Arya just barely had time to cry out before her inner walls were fluttering against him, making Gendry’s vision hazy as he chased down his own release. He thrust into her one, two, three more times before his last ounce of restraint shattered and nearly took him to the ground.

When he came back to himself he was clutching Arya to his chest, his face buried in the crook of her neck as they both gasped for air in the humid room. 

“Holy shit,” Arya muttered, breaking the reverie and making them both laugh. 

He brushed her hair aside to kiss her neck and Arya melted even further into him. “Lets go to bed,” he suggested and Arya nodded weakly.

Going to bed with Arya was an odd experience. Last time he had spent the night they had both simply nodded off, the excitement of the day overtaking them. This time they worked together to make the bed before crawling in together as if it were a nightly occurrence. 

“I just want to sleep for the next week,” Arya said, plugging her phone in and setting it on her nightstand. Gendry’s own phone was charging on her desk courtesy of the charger that Robb had left behind when he had helped her move in.

“I’ll wake you up when it’s next Friday and we can do this all again.”

She grinned, stretching her limbs before rolling over to press herself against his side. “Sounds perfect.”

“You do know what next week is, don’t you?”

Arya looked up at him, eyebrows furrowed as she thought about it. “Ugh! It’s Valentine's Day, isn’t it?”

“Aaaaand we have a winner!” He paused for a moment and neither of them seemed to be able to look anywhere but the ceiling. This was a make or break moment, Gendry knew.  _ Don’t push _ , he reminded himself. “We don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to.”

“Don’t be stupid. We always hang out on Fridays. Besides, something tells me you are  _ not _ going to want to be home when Jon and Ygritte get back from whatever they have planned.”

Gendry screwed his face up, even though she couldn’t see him do it. “I didn’t even think of that.”

“I had a feeling you wouldn’t.”

“Hey!”

Arya smirked over at him, propping herself up on one elbow to see him better. “I’m just saying, it might not be a bad idea for you to hide out here for the night. Besides, won’t Jon get suspicious if you sit at home alone all night?”

“I could tell him we broke up,” Gendry offered.

Now it was Arya’s turn to screw up her features. “What, like we’re in eighth grade? No, that’s stupid. Plus he’ll just question it even more when you keep leaving the apartment to come over here.”

Gendry had to admit that she had a point. “Alright, we’ll stay here and wait for the storm to pass.”

“Good.” Arya reached back to click of her lamp and the room was bathed in darkness. She settled against his side, as usual and he even felt bold enough to pull her closer as he shut his eyes.

“Oh, and Gendry?”

“Hmmm?”

“If you try to bring me flowers, I  _ will _ throat punch you.”

“Noted.”

And with that, they drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Arya woke up before him on Saturday. Gendry couldn’t be particularly mad about it though; not when it meant waking up to her straddling his hips and kissing his neck. When they had finished fucking each other breathless they had enjoyed coffee together on the sofa before Gendry ran back to his apartment for a change of clothes and some books that he would need. 

Even as they worked on their homework in silence, Gendry realized that he never felt awkward in Arya’s presence. They had built a certain comfort with each other over the last few months and he was glad that she didn’t feel the need to entertain him. They had scraped together a lunch from the hodgepodge left in Arya’s fridge before diving back into their work until the middle of the afternoon. 

“It’s going to storm tonight,” she announced out of the blue, closing her laptop as she did. 

Was that a lead-in to something? Did she want him to leave? Had she not meant for him to come back when he’d left that morning? No, that was nonsense. She’d told him to bring back a book of hers that Jon had borrowed when he left.

“So?”

“So, if you want to eat something other than celery and apple juice for dinner tonight, we’ll need to hit the grocery store before the roads get too bad.”

Gendry set his notes aside. “I’ll drive.”

Even grocery shopping was more fun with Arya. Gendry always felt overwhelmed in the store and it took forever for him to decide what he wanted. Often times he had to double back after changing his mind, drawing the process out. Arya had no such issues.

She made him push the cart while she stood on the other end of it, directing him like a sled dog. She seemed to know exactly what she wanted and how to find it, grabbing it off the shelf without telling him to stop. After a few aisles he made a game of it, slowly speeding up or swerving around if the aisle was clear.

“No! My peanut butter!” She was laughing even as her hand missed a jar of jif by a mile.

“Sorry, no turning back now. Gotta beat the storm,” he teased, speeding further down the row.

“Gendry! Turn around,”she cried. “Stop it!” 

Gendry could barely make out what she was saying over her laughter. He dragged the cart to a screeching halt in the middle of the aisle, making Arya laugh even harder. God, she was beautiful when she laughed…

An older woman poked her head around the end of the row to see what all the commotion was and shot the pair of them a disapproving look. “Young people these days,” she sighed, shaking her head. “No common courtesy.”

Arya at least had the restraint to wait until the old bat was gone before breaking into another fit of laughter. She hopped off the end of the cart and fetched her peanut butter. When it had landed safely next to the box of granola bars, she hopped back on the cart and they set off again.

“You know, you’ll probably have to spend the night again,” she said as he wheeled her through the frozen food section. “For safety purposes.”

“Don’t you usually go out on Saturdays?”

She shrugged. “Most weeks. I’m a little tired tonight, though.”

“Oh, you’re all worn out?” He was teasing but Gendry secretly hoped she’d been serious about him spending the night again.

“Well, maybe I’m not  _ that _ tired,” she grinned, tossing him sultry look as she licked her lips.

It wasn’t long before they had checked out and loaded the bags into his truck. Arya insisted on carrying all the bags into the apartment by herself. “It’s a matter of pride,” she had said before Gendry had tossed her and the bags over his shoulder and barreled through the falling snow towards the door. He barely had time to shove the milk and eggs in the fridge before she was dragging him to the bedroom. 

* * *

Arya made turkey chili for dinner that night, despite Gendry’s insistence that he should take a turn cooking. She had eventually conceded that he could help and set him to work chopping vegetables with strict instructions to not hurt himself. He rolled his eyes but followed her instructions to the letter. It was the perfect meal for a frigid night and Gendry had to admit he enjoyed it. Arya had stopped trying to deter him from doing the dishes a while ago, instead she just queued up their favorite comedy show on Netflix and mixed up some hot chocolate for them both. 

By the time the third episode ended she was fast asleep on his chest but Gendry didn’t mind. He grabbed the remote off the coffee table and switched the tv off. He was perfectly content to watch her sleep in the warm light of the lamp. He hadn’t realized he was humming to himself until she stirred, rubbing a hand over her face before burying it in his shoulder.

“You’re not bad,” she mumbled, repeating what he’d said to her in the shower the night before. 

Gendry chuckled but didn’t respond. The song she had been singing the previous day wouldn’t seem to leave his head. It didn’t help that every time he caught himself humming along to the familiar tune, the image of his mother tending her garden sprang to mind as well. 

“Are you ready for bed?”

He took the nonsense she grumbled against his skin as a yes and scooped her up in his arms, carrying her and the blanket in which she’d tangled herself into the bedroom and tucking her in. He did a quick check of the apartment, shutting off lights and checking the lock on the door before heading into the bathroom and washing up.

It was easy, he realized, staring at the toothbrush she had given him as it sat next to hers in the cup on the counter. This thing with Arya, whatever it was, was  _ easy _ . Waking up with her and grocery shopping with her and keeping his toothbrush next to hers… it was all so simple.

At least, it should have been. In a perfect world it would have been. I a parallel universe he was her boyfriend and she told people so, and when he went to her apartment he didn’t lie about it to his best friend. In another life, he thought, he wasn’t her dirty little secret. 

* * *

__   
  


“Do you have tomorrow off?”

Gendry looked up from his homework to where Jon was cooking spaghetti in the kitchen. “Tomorrow? Oh right, yeah. Don’t worry, I won’t be home though. You and Ygritte can have sex as loud as you want to.”

Jon looked like he wanted to be offended but couldn’t find the energy. “You and your girl have plans?”

“Just spending the night in at her place,” Gendry shrugged. “I have to work on Saturday and she’s not really big on Valentine’s anyway, so I promised her a big bag of candy and a movie marathon.”

“What kind of girl doesn’t like Valentine’s Day? Even Ygritte is excited to go wine and dine and get flowers.”

Gendry just shrugged again. “I asked the same thing. All I got was a lecture about capitalism and the commodification of basic human emotions for profits. So… movie night it is.”

Jon let out a snort. “You need to introduce her to Arya. I hear almost the exact same speech on Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and every time one of our family friends gets engaged.”

“Let me guess, she doesn’t like weddings either?”

“She hates the wedding  _ industry _ ,” Jon corrected. “Not that it matters much, anyway. She’s probably going to and up single with like fifty dogs. She can’t commit to a hair color, much less another person.”

Gendry gave a laugh that he hoped didn’t sound as forced as it felt. 

“Seriously though, you should introduce them,” Jon added. “Maybe I can wear Arry down and convince her to reveal who this mystery girl is.”

“I doubt it.”

_ I really, really doubt it. _


	7. La Di Da

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon no longer knows nothing, but Arya might.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title and lyrics by Lennon Stella.

_ _

_ Stand in the kitchen _

_ Attempting to fix this _

_ So I try to listen to you… _

_ You're gonna say something you don't mean _

_ So just before you take it too far, _

_ I'll hold my ears, say "La da da di da” _

“You know, you’ve completely spoiled me,” Arya smirked from her perch on the countertop.

“What, can’t imagine living without your own personal dishwasher now?” Gendry pulled the drain plug and dried his hands off. 

Arya nodded. “It’s so convenient. Plus you’re much cheaper than anything Whirlpool makes.” She paused for a moment before trying one last time to convince him. “You know, it’s not too late to change your mind. You could come home with me for the week, sneak into my room at night, help me play pranks on Jon and Robb...”

“As fun as that sounds, I have to stay here,” he said, coming to stand between her knees and letting his hands roam her thighs. “We’re up to our eyeballs in work at the shop. Besides, who would feed your fish?”   
  


“Fair enough.”

“ _ But _ , if you keep making me amazing food, I will happily keep doing the dishes afterwards.” 

“You’ve got yourself a deal.” They sealed the agreement with a pinky promise and a languid kiss. “You know, Jon isn’t picking me up for over an hour…”

Even as she said it, her hands were brushing along the hem of his shirt. 

She was about to go home for spring break and they still hadn’t told her brother about whatever it was that was going on between them. Frankly, Arya was in no rush for him to find out. It wasn’t like they were just hooking up — she genuinely enjoyed his company and had long before sex had become involved. Still, she didn’t think Jon would be comforted much by the fact that they were having meals, watching movies, and doing homework together in  _ addition _ to having sex.

Gendry got the message her fingertips were trying to convey and lifted his shirt over his head, balling it up and tossing it further down the counter. 

Arya locked her legs around his waist as she traced the lines of his tattoo with her fingertips. It had become a habit of hers over the past weeks, which Gendry didn’t seem to mind. He rested his hands on either side of her and leaned forward, kissing a path along her jaw and down her throat and making her grin as his stubble scraped the skin of her neck. 

“A whole hour, huh?” He barely pulled his lips away to say it and Arya could feel the rumble of his voice reverberating through her.

“We’d better make the most of it,” she agreed. Outside of her door she could hear one of her neighbors clomping up the stairs, but she ignored it. 

His hands were making their way over her hips, her waist, her rib cage. It was thoroughly distracting when he reached his destination and started palming her breasts through her shirt. She was so busy running her hands through Gendry’s thick hair and rolling her hips against his that the sound of the lock on her door clicking open almost didn’t register.

“Hey Arry, my class got out early. I thought we could make some cookies for the… road.”

Her heart stopped at the voice.  _ Jon _ was standing in the doorway with a grocery bag in one hand, her spare key in the other, and an absolutely disbelieving look on his face. Arya’s mind was racing, but there was no explaining the situation away. Sure, they weren’t naked on top of each other, but the position was compromising enough. Plus, Jon knew Gendry was hooking up with  _ someone _ on a regular basis. It was only a matter of time before he connected the dots and…

“What the  _ HELL _ ?” 

Arya loved Jon. For as long as she could remember, they had shared a special bond. He was patient with her when others would not have been and quick to apologize when his temper got the best of him (a skill that Arya had taken far longer to hone). If she really thought about it, Arya could only count on one hand the number of times she had seen him  _ this  _ angry.

Gendry at least had the good sense to jump away from her at the sound of his best friend’s voice. 

“You’re here early,” Arya said as if it weren’t already obvious. 

Jon’s eyes darted between the two of them, taking in Gendry’s shirtless torso and messed up hair before switching back to Arya’s deer-in-headlights expression. She couldn’t tell who he was more furious with.

“You… this is who you… you’ve been…” he sputtered, looking at Gendry. “My  _ sister _ ?”

Jon took a step toward Gendry and Arya jumped off the counter to put herself between the two of them. “Okay, let’s just cool down for a minute.”

“I  _ am  _ cool,” Jon said with pure ice in his tone. “What’s not  _ cool _ , is my  _ best friend _ going behind my back and hooking up with my baby sister!”

Gendry, for his part,  _ did  _ look guilty. “Jon, it’s not like that. I didn’t—”

Arya, however, was just as fired up as her brother. She cut Gendry off, addressing Jon herself. “I’m twenty years old, Jon! I may be your little sister but I’m sure as hell not a baby, and I can make my own decisions.”

Jon didn’t seem to know what to say to that so Arya took the lull in the argument to pick up Gendry’s shirt and hand it to him. “Clearly my brother and I have a lot to discuss. You should go home. I’ll text you later, okay?”

“Don’t you think I should stay?”

“No need,” she assured him before shooting a pointed look at Jon. “Nobody’s on trial here.”

Gendry still looked uncertain, but walked past his roommate to slip his shoes on and reach for his coat.

“I thought better of you,” Jon said, addressing his friend. Arya immediately whirled around to face him with fire in her eyes.

She couldn’t see Gendry, but she heard his defeated voice from behind her. “I’m sorry.”

Arya wanted to tell him that he had nothing to be sorry for but didn’t trust herself to open her mouth without every little thing she was thinking spilling out. 

As soon as she heard the door close she looked up at her brother. “Who the  _ fuck _ do you think you are?” Her voice was pure gasoline and matches but Jon seemed unfazed.

“I’m your brother, Arya. I’m allowed to look after your best interests.”

Her vision went red. “My  _ best interests _ ? How would you even know what those are? You haven’t come by in  _ weeks _ , you hardly text me, do you even know what classes I’m taking?”

The guilty look on his face was her answer. She pressed on before he could use the brief pause to try and argue with her again.

“Don’t you dare stand there being all high and mighty and try to tell me what’s in my best interests when you don’t fucking know what those are! You’re not the boss of me, and you’re not the boss of Gendry either!” 

“You don’t think I should have known about this? Did you ever bother to ask yourself how this would affect me?” 

“This isn’t about you!” She was well and truly shouting now, but she didn’t care. “None of this is any of your business!” 

“This is  _ absolutely _ my business,” he retorted. “ _ You  _ are my business, whether you like it or not.”

_ You’re not even my real brother. _ She hated herself a little for even thinking it, but the fog of anger that had settled over her mind was blurring the line between what was and wasn’t acceptable.

“You know what? I’ll drive myself home,” she said, turning around to walk into her bedroom and slamming the door behind her.

She tried to ignore him as she sprayed her plants and fed her fish one last time but he wasn’t letting up.

“Arry, come on. We’re both going home anyway. We should just go together. You don’t even have to talk to me if you don’t want to.” 

She didn’t want to.

She tossed her laptop and her phone charger in her suitcase and zipped it closed before turning to her desk and pulling out a notebook. She tore a sheet out and scribbled a note down in black sharpie.

_ Gendry, _

_ Please feed the fish 1 pinch of food in the morning and 1 more at night. The flakes are in the top drawer, just grind them up between your fingers as you sprinkle them. The plants in here are fine for the week but the tall one in the living room will need water around Tues or Wed. ½ a cup should do the trick. Thanks again! -Arya _

She slapped the note down in front of the fish tank, knowing full well that she could have just texted him the instructions. She needed something to do other than throttling her brother though. Jon wasn’t talking anymore, but when she looked over to the door she could still see his shadow through the crack at the bottom.

Some of her anger had dissipated and she knew she was being a  _ little _ unreasonable, but she was mad at him, damn it! He had hardly seen her this semester. What right did he have to try and tell her what was good for her? 

“I’ll go with you,” she said as she opened the door with her suitcase in hand. “But only because I care about the planet and carpooling is eco-friendly.” 

“Arry.” He didn’t say anything else, but she knew what it meant ‘Please listen, please stop being stubborn, I don’t want you to be mad at me.’

She sighed, realizing that it was going to be a long five hours if she tried to stay this mad the whole time. “Ceasefire?”

She could tell it wasn’t what he was hoping for, but he’d take what he could get. “Alright. What are your terms?”

“You get three questions, but I can veto any that I don’t like. Afterwards, we don’t speak of it again.”

“Ever?”

“Until  _ I  _ decide I want to talk about it. ”

He considered her terms. “Fine. Did you want to make cookies for the road? I brought all the stuff.”

She peeked into the bag he had brought. He had brought the expensive chocolate chips so she figured his head must not be  _ totally  _ up his ass. “Alright. I’ll bake, you pick your questions, counselor.”

She let her music play as she measured and mixed the ingredients, letting Jon think his questions through. It wasn’t until she was preparing the cookie tray that he spoke up. 

“Alright, I’m ready.”

Arya steeled herself for what came next. “Go ahead.”

“When did this all start?”

Okay, that one wasn’t too bad. “Right after we got back from winter break,” she admitted. “He came over to hang out and it just kind of… happened.”

“You had sex, you mean.” Jon had his lawyer voice on and it was wearing down Arya’s patience. “I’m just trying to get all the facts straight.”

“Yes, Jon. We had sex. Would you like me to draw you a diagram? Give you a play-by-play maybe?”

Her tone was biting but he didn’t back down. “That won’t be necessary. I just wanted clarification. Who initiated it?”

“I did, so you can stop being an asshole to Gendry. He wanted to come clean the second you told him you knew he was seeing someone. I’m the one that wanted to keep it a secret.”

“He should have told me,” Jon countered as Arya slid the cookie sheet into the oven.

“I asked him not to. Are you going to ask your last question or keep debating where Gendry’s loyalties are supposed to lie?”

Jon took a deep breath, pushing his hair back from his face as he exhaled. “Do you love him?”

Arya stopped dead in her tracks, back turned to her brother with a bag of sugar clutched to her chest.  _ What? _

“Because I think he loves you, and he deserves to know if this means more to him than it does to you,” Jon carried on. 

“Gendry doesn’t love me,” she said matter-of-factly, putting the sugar away. “It’s been like two months.”

“I knew I loved Ygritte after one week,” Jon countered.

“So you’re saying that if I don’t know that I love him after a few weeks I’m...what? Leading him on?”

“I’m just saying you should consider what you really want before you’re too deep in this thing. Talk to him about it. You might realize you’re not as ‘on the same page’ as you think.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think I really need relationship advice from someone who didn’t even know I was  _ in _ a relationship until thirty minutes ago.”

“Arry, I’m trying to help.”

“And I’m trying to tell you I don’t need your help.”

“Alright, fine.” He held his hands up in surrender and let the issue drop for the time being.

* * *

Arya managed to ignore him for most of the ride home, keeping her earbuds firmly in place and staring out the window. She must have dozed off somewhere in New Jersey because she missed the drive over the Hudson. When Jon nudged her awake it was to inform her that they had made it back onto Long Island. 

“I’ll call Mom,” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes as she sought out her phone. The time across the top of the screen read 1:17 AM and she realized she had missed a text message from Gendry about an hour before. She unlocked the device and typed out her response.

** _Gendry: So am I being murdered or just castrated?_ **

** _Arya: Neither. Jon is still being a dick tho._ **

She was surprised when she got a response almost immediately.

** _Gendry: Well, let me know when it’s safe to start begging for his forgiveness. If I start early he might not strangle me when he gets home. _ **

** _Arya: There will be no begging. We’re not in the wrong here. _ **

** _Arya: Don’t you have work in the morning? Go to bed._ **

** _Gendry: I’m doing homework. You home yet?_ **

** _Arya: Almost. _ **

** _Gendry: Let me know when you’ve made it._ **

** _Arya: Okay, Mom._ **

** _Gendry: Not trying to be bossy, just need to know if I’m gonna be stuck with a bunch of orphaned fish._ **

** _Arya: Fair enough. I’ll text you when we’re there._ **

She knew it was stupid but Arya couldn’t help but grin at the screen. 

“Are you gonna call her or just keep texting your boyfriend?”

Arya rolled her eyes at Jon’s little outburst but pulled up her mom’s contact anyway. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she said, then pressed dial.

“Does he know that?”

She didn’t have time to respond. Despite the hour, Catelyn Stark sounded wide awake. Arya didn’t talk to Jon as they drove on through the darkness, not even as the brick walls of Winterfell Manor came into view. 

When she was a kid, Jon and Theon used to make up stories of ghosts that haunted the rooms of the century-old estate. It was easy to convince her that every creak of an old floorboard was an apparition coming after her while she slept at night. Eventually the paranoia had hit a fever pitch when Theon had hid under Sansa’s bed to scare them and gotten his arm stomped on. Arya had only tried to protect a shrieking Sansa from the hand that had reached out to grab at their ankles. Still, she hadn’t felt all that bad when he came home from the emergency room with a neon green cast on his wrist.

Nothing about her home frightened her anymore. In fact, Arya took comfort in the fact that the sprawling stone stood strong for so many decades. It had been her mother’s pet project from the day her parents had moved in. There wasn’t a room in the place that she hadn’t had repainted, rewired, reconfigured, or redone completely. It still kept its old-fashioned charm, of course, but with the addition of fun things like proper electrical wiring and central heating and cooling.

Jon pulled the sedan into the garage and Arya was out of the car before he had even killed the engine. She had barely stepped through the door and into the kitchen before all hell seemingly broke loose. A single bark echoed across the house, followed by the tapping of sixteen paws on hardwood floors.

“Nymeria!” Arya set her bag down as the mass of grey fur that had been hurtling towards her came to rest at her feet. The other dogs jumped around in excitement as Arya let Nym lick at her face. All at once her parents appeared from the small living area off the kitchen, Jon came in from the garage, and cry of “they’re here” rose up from somewhere on the other side of the house, promptly followed by the sounds of several pairs of feet and the hum of Bran’s wheelchair. 

“How was the drive?”

“Where’s Ghost?”

“Do you want something to eat?”

Arya ignored the questions from Robb, Rickon, and her mother, and simply sank into her father’s arms instead. She was tired and confused, but she knew she didn’t have to worry there. “Welcome home, Sunshine.”

When she turned back to the group, she was unsurprised to find Jojen Reed and Lyanna Mormont standing amongst her siblings, all dressed in pajamas and looking at least mildly tired. 

“No Gendry?” Catelyn asked as Arya and Jon doled out hugs. Arya shot her brother a look over RIckon’s shoulder but he acted like he hadn’t seen it.

“He had to work,” Jon explained.

“Well, I’m glad you’re both back, but you look exhausted,” Ned said. “Let’s all get to bed, shall we?”

The group started to dissipate as everyone said their goodnights. “Arya,” her mother said, “you don’t mind sharing your room with Lyanna tonight do you? I know she and Rickon are ‘ _ just friends _ ’ but…”

Arya waved a dismissive hand. “It’s fine, Mom. You know I don’t mind.”

She tried not to laugh out loud as she walked away. Catelyn wasn’t a bad mother, but her Irish Catholic upbringing meant that her gaydar had never quite gotten calibrated. She figured that’s why she’d been so shocked when Theon came out, why she’d tried desperately to set Robb up with his very gay best friend, Dacey Mormont (an uncomfortably close parallel to what she saw going on with Rickon and Lyanna), and why Arya’s coming out had been so terribly dramatic. And, Arya thought, it was why she had just merrily sent her second youngest son upstairs with his secret boyfriend.

She grinned a bit as Lyanna followed Arya to her room. Theon had come out in spectacular fashion, nearly causing his foster mother to have a meltdown. Arya was grateful though, as it had made her own coming out a bit easier. After that, Theon had become the one she went to for advice, knowing Robb and Jon would be horrified at the idea of her having sex at all, and that Theon wouldn’t judge her or try to change her mind. She hoped that it would be easier for Bran when he and Jojen finally got caught or decided to stop sneaking around.

She’d asked Jon once, after they’d stolen a bottle of wine and hidden away in one of the many rooms of the basement with it, how he identified. All he’d said was that he “didn’t need a word for it.” Arya hadn’t pressed the issue again after that, but wondered sometimes. 

“You can take Sansa’s bed,” Arya offered when she and Lyanna arrived in the room she’d shared with Sansa for fourteen years.

The floors were a dark, warm wood that contrasted nicely with the pale blue walls, and the large windows on the far wall looked out into the backyard and the trees beyond. Sansa’s pretty canopy bed sat framed by a pair of windows, made up perfectly with plush bedding and extra blankets in the decorative trunk at the end. After trying for the thousandth time to convince her mother to let her share Jon’s room (which was attached somewhat oddly to Robb and Theon’s) Catelyn had conceded that she could take the turret that they’d used as a play area in their younger years as her own space. 

The double-sided fireplace in the corner offered a peek into the area. It was just big enough for her bed and a small desk, which was all Arya had needed at the time. She headed straight for the comfort of the little round room and tossed her suitcase on the bed. She considered throwing herself down on the bed too, but decided to wash up and change first. The day felt like it was sticking to her and she wanted it off.

“How’s soccer going? Rickon said they were considering pulling you up to Varsity,” Arya said as she and Lyanna brushed their teeth in the en suite bathroom. “That’s a big move for a freshman.”

“I’d rather stay on JV for the season. I’d hardly play on Varsity and scouts won’t start seriously looking at me until next year anyway.”

“You’re not already looking at colleges, are you?”

Lyanna shrugged before spitting into the sink. “Why not? They’re looking at me.”

If nothing else, Arya had to admire the youngest Mormont’s confidence. Of course, she was also an all-state athlete at the age of fourteen, so that confidence was certainly earned. “Do you have a frontrunner?”

“I wouldn’t turn down any school in the Big 10 but U of M is my favorite.”

“Minnesota?” Arya didn’t really follow college sports. 

“Michigan.”

“Ah. Well, you’ve got plenty of time before you have to choose.”

She and Lyanna finished up in the bathroom and headed to bed. Arya offered the younger girl a final “goodnight” and pulled closed the curtains on her bed frame. She had every intention of sleeping until noon and she didn’t need the morning light that always came pouring through the many windows of the turret to impede that plan. She typed a quick text to Gendry, then snuggled up under the covers and promptly fell asleep.

** _Arya: Home. Not dead, just sleeping for the next 15 hours._ **

** _Gendry: Sweet dreams._ **

She didn’t get his text until she woke up several hours later.

* * *

** _Arya: How’s work?_ **

** _Gendry: Boring. How’s home?_ **

** _Arya: Promise you won’t be jealous?_ **

** _Gendry: I promise._ **

Arya snapped a picture of the massive brunch Catelyn had prepared for them and sent it.

** _Gendry: ok… I’m a little jealous._ **

** _Arya: I’ll eat a waffle for you._ **

** _Gendry: Thank you. Is everyone home?_ **

** _Arya: Sansa’s break isn’t until next week and Theon doesn’t get back from Chicago until Monday night._ **

** _Arya: We picked up a couple extras though, so it feels about the same._ **

“Arya! How many times do I have to tell you not to text at the table?” Her mother shot her a terse look from across the breakfast table. 

“Sorry. Just wanted to see how my fish were doing.” She tucked the phone under her thigh on the chair.

“Who’s looking after them while you’re here?” Her dad was stirring sugar into his coffee and Arya could tell it was his second or third cup of the day. 

“Gendry, actually.”

“I was surprised he didn’t come with you guys this week,” Catelyn said, handing the plate of bacon off to Robb. “Is he watching Ghost too?”

Jon nodded.

_ Liar, _ Arya thought. Ghost was with Ygritte for the week and they both knew it. She glanced over to her brother, challenging him with her gaze, but he simply raised an eyebrow in response. It was a dare. He wanted to see if she would call his bluff and give him an excuse to expose her relationship with Gendry.

She wouldn’t normally back down from a dare, but she knew she had to let this one go. Besides, if Jon was as serious about his girlfriend as he said he was, she’d be meeting them all soon. She could wait for things to play out naturally.

“Mom,” Bran started as he cut his own waffle into pieces, “Jojen and I were thinking of going to the mall today. Would you drive us? Meera said she can pick us up afterwards.”

“I’ll take you,” Arya offered. “I wanted to meet up with Meera anyway.”

“I don’t have any problem with that,” their mother agreed, looking pleasantly surprised. “Do you two need any money?”

“I have cash from tutoring,” Bran said. 

“I’m good,” Arya added. She had a bit of money leftover from her last summer job, though it was a good reminder to follow up on some internship and employment opportunities when she got home.

* * *

They ended up borrowing Ned’s Cadillac instead of the massive SUV that Catelyn drove. Bran took the passenger’s seat, shuffling through the radio stations as Arya and Jojen loaded his chair into the trunk and buckled Summer into the backseat. Jojen gave the big mutt a scratch behind the ears and slid into the seat next to him as Arya made her way to the driver’s seat and opened the garage door. 

They were just pulling out of the driveway when Bran spoke up. “Is something going on with you and Jon?”

Arya shot her brother what she hoped was a convincing look of confusion. “No. Why do you say that?”

Bran shrugged. “You guys just seem…off. And you were weird with him at breakfast.”

“I wasn’t weird.”

“You were a little weird,” Jojen offered. 

Arya heaved a sigh, turning on her blinker as she did. “We just had an argument, that’s all.”

“What was the argument about? I need to know whose side I’m on,” Bran said simply.

“Hey! I should hope you’re on the side of the sibling who is driving you to the mall when she could be taking a nap.”

“She does have a point,” Jojen said, inclining his head towards Bran.

“Your motives are entirely selfish,” Bran reminded her. “You only offered to take us so you and Meera could wander around IKEA together and talk about the hot guys at your schools.”

“Brandon Colm Stark! That is entirely untrue… we’re also going to talk about the hot girls at our schools. Bisexual solidarity, bitch.”

“That’s still selfish.”

“Oh please, like you desperately needed to go to Macy’s today. You two just want to get Haagen-Dazs and canoodle in the back of Spencer’s.”

The car was dead silent for a beat as Bran and Jojen exchanged nervous glances. 

“Oh, you thought I didn’t know about you two? Rickon’s more perceptive than you give him credit for, you know. And he  _ loves _ to talk.” 

“Who else knows?”

Arya shrugged. “Obviously not mom. You remember the freak out she had when I came out.”

“Why do you think we haven’t told anyone?”

“So you can keep sharing a bed at night?”

“I’m being serious, Arya! She can’t know.”

“Talk to Rickon, not me. I know better than to out someone.”

They both seemed a bit more relaxed at that and Arya was relieved that they had managed to circumvent conversation about her fight with Jon. She turned into the parking lot and found a handicapped spot near the entrance. Jojen took charge of Bran’s chair, retrieving it from the trunk and helping him in while Summer patiently waited for Arya to put his vest and harness on. 

** _Meera: Are you here yet? I’m at the haagen-dazs kiosk._ **

** _Arya: Why am I not surprised? We just walked in._ **

** _Meera: Hurry up and come hug me! I haven’t seen you in forever!_ **

* * *

_   
  
_

“So what’s the problem? You like him, he clearly likes you. I don’t get it,” Meera said, taking another bite of her ice cream. 

“The problem is that Jon thinks I’m leading him on or something.”

“Those are the actual words he used?” 

Arya sighed. Meera had always been a comforting presence to her, but even she couldn’t seem to unwind this mess in Arya’s head. “He said he thinks Gendry’s in love with me.”

“Well, is he?”

“Of course not! We’re friends with benefits…  _ very good _ benefits.”

“Hold on a minute.” Meera came to a full stop, capturing Arya’s arm as she did. “You’re telling me that this guy is not only funny,smart, and hot, he’s  _ also _ good in bed?”

“I mean, good is an understatement but… yeah, pretty much.”

“I know you don’t really do relationships, but you should really lock this one down, honey.”

“Meera!”

“I’m serious! Does he have a brother?”

Arya shook her head.

“A sister?”

“She’s fifteen.”

Meera wrinkled her nose. “Well, it was worth a shot.”

They picked their lazy pace back up, strolling along the edge of the pathway as they talked. “Anyway, now Jon’s pissed at me for the whole situation and I think he’s even more mad at Gendry. This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell him in the first place.”   
  
“Well, I can see why he would feel betrayed, but it doesn’t give him the right to infantilize you.”

Arya grinned. Leave it to Meera to make a pep talk sound like a dissertation. “I just feel like I’m still thirteen in his head, you know? I’m always going to be Arry to him.”

“Ugh. Don’t tell me this is some sort of bullshit about defending your  _ honor _ .” Meera rolled her eyes. “Seriously, I think he’ll get over it. The question is, how far are you going to let this go?”

Arya shot her friend a confused look. 

“Oh, come on. I love you, but you avoid commitment like the plague.”

“Dramatic much?” She was mostly teasing but deep down, Arya was a little hurt that Meera had called her bluff like that. “We’re friends with benefits, Meer. No commitment required.”

“Right now maybe. But what happens if he wants more? Are you willing to watch him date some other girl and still be his friend?”

Arya avoided Meera’s gaze by seeking out a trash can for her ice cream dish. The thought of Gendry with someone else had never occurred to her, but Meera was right. One day he’d get tired of the secrets and the sneaking around and go find a girl who could give him all the things Arya couldn’t. He deserved that, didn’t he?

Of course he did. That didn’t make her feel any less sick at the idea of him waking up in some other girl’s bed, wrapping his strong arms around her and kissing her shoulders and neck. Her mind travelled back to the weekend that Jon had been away on his camping trip. She thought about the way it felt to wake up with Gendry wrapped around her, all warm and protective. It was stupid (and not her proudest moment as a feminist) but she had never felt so safe and peaceful as she had in the minutes that she had lain there listening to him breathe.

“I- I don’t know,” Arya admitted.

Meera met her eyes earnestly, offering a half grin. “Well you should try to figure it out, before you don’t have any choice left.”


	8. Islands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya makes a choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics and chapter title by Sara Bareilles. If there's any chapter where you need to listen to the associated song, it's this one.

_ Holding my breath until I know you're alright _

_ Because the water will only rise _

_ When will you realize _

_ You must become an island… _

_ and see for yourself _

_ That's what I am _

  
  


** _Arya: help! Mom is yelling at me because I forgot to pack a dress for church._ **

** _Sansa: There’s a green one on my side of the closet that might fit you._ **

** _Arya: Found it!_ **

** _Arya: Also, why do you have so many clothes here? You haven’t lived at home in like 6 years._ **

** _Sansa: They’re winter clothes! I don’t need them here!_ **

** _Sansa: Does the dress fit or not?_ **

** _Arya: It fits! You’ve saved me!_ **

Arya examined herself in the mirror. She wasn’t sure what had made Sansa deem the dress a winter selection but guessed it may have been the color. It was a hunter green with fluttering cap sleeves and buttons down the front. The skirt was knee-length on her, but probably would have fallen to the middle of Sansa’s thigh. 

Like all things, it would have looked better on her sister but Arya couldn’t complain. At least the color was nice on her skin tone. She tied up the fabric belt around her waist and slapped on a bit of mascara before heading back out into her room. 

“Arya! If you don’t hurry up we’re going to have to sit in the back!”

Catelyn burst into the room for the fourth time that morning, looking equal parts annoyed and flawless. She was always dressed to the nines for church. Arya tried not to roll her eyes as she sought out her purse and the flats she’d packed. “We always have to sit in the back, Mom. That’s where the spots for the wheelchairs are.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean we should be late.”

“I’m ready, see? Let’s go.”

Once she’d been wedged into the third row of the SUV with Robb and Rickon, Arya fished out her phone.

** _Arya: What are you wearing?_ **

** _Gendry: Are you trying to sext me right now?_ **

** _Arya: No, I just want to live vicariously through someone that isn’t wearing church clothes._ **

** _Gendry: Ahhh! Right. Forgot today was Sunday. I’m wearing sweatpants and that hoodie you keep trying to steal._ **

Arya could picture the one he was talking about immediately. It was the one he’d worn the night they’d had sex for the first time. Try as she might to hide it after she pulled it off him, he always found the thing before he left. At least I still have his flannel, she thought, then immediately pushed the thought away. 

** _Arya: I have no idea what you’re talking about._ **

** _Gendry: Liar._ **

** _Arya: ...it’s soft, okay?_ **

** _Gendry: I KNEW IT!_ **

** _Arya: I’ll trade you this stupid dress for it._ **

** _She snapped a discreet selfie and sent it to him._ **

** _Gendry: 1. You look very nice 2. What would I do with a dress?_ **

** _Arya: take it off of me. ;)_ **

“Arya, I had better not see that phone out during the service today,” Catelyn warned from the front seat.

“Who are you even texting? You’ve barely looked up since we got in the car,” Robb said, glancing over at her lap, where her phone was resting. Arya reached down to hide it back in her purse but Rickon was quicker.

Try as she might, Arya couldn’t grab the thing back. Even when he stopped waving it around it was out of reach at the end of his arm. “It’s Gendry,” he announced when a response popped up on her lock screen. “He says ‘IDK doesn’t sound like a fair trade to me.’”

“What’s not a fair trade?” Bran had to twist in his seat to try and see them in the seats behind him.

Finally Arya was able to wrangle the phone out of her brother’s hands. She was lucky that Gendry hadn’t said anything suggestive in response to her last text. “We were just figuring out what I owe him for watching my place this week.”

“Well what did you offer him?” Robb asked.

“Thirty bucks and a batch of his favorite cookies.” _ And a blowjob _, she added mentally.

“Well that seems more than fair,” Catelyn chimed in from the front seat. “I don’t know why he’s asking for more.”

“He’s kidding, Mom. He does that, you know.”

Her mother huffed but didn’t say anything else. Arya shot Gendry one last text as they pulled into the parking lot of the church.

** _Arya: We can work something out when I get home. I’ll text you later. Gotta go sing songs so the sky man doesn’t smite me or whatever._ **

** _Gendry: lol. Have fun._ **

** _Gendry: You really do look beautiful btw. I didn’t want you to think I was joking about that._ **

Arya bit her lip as she read the last text and tried to fight back the grin that had started to creep onto her face. When she looked up Jon was giving her an odd look. She figured it was better than him being mad at her for no reason though, so she didn’t say anything as they filed into the chapel.

Arya had tried really hard to like church as a kid. She wanted to enjoy the ritual and pageantry of it all the way that Sansa did, but she just couldn’t. She didn’t like sitting still and listening to the endless droning on of the priest, or getting yelled at for dirtying her hands on the front lawn of the cathedral before mass started. Her mother had held out hope that she would grow in her faith as she matured but it had been the opposite.

She hated the masquerade of it all. The dresses she wasn’t allowed to get dirty, the smiles she had to fake, the platitudes she had to recite, the lies she had to tell. She hated how all the hate was drenched in soft spoken bible verses and saturated with self-righteousness. She hated the costume she had to wear and the part she had to play every Sunday.

At church she was straight. At church she was a virgin. At church she was whatever she needed to be to spare herself her mother’s wrath. 

At least she got to sit next to her father in the pew. Bran was on her other side, his wheelchair parked in the gap meant for wheelchair-bound congregants and Summer lying at his feet. Arya placed her hand on the arm rest and Bran placed his next to it, lifting his thumb to tap a message on the back of her hand in Morse code.

M-I-S-S-E-D-U

She waited until he was done to tap her own message back.

U-2

He grinned at her as she stood to sing with the rest of the congregation. When she sat back down she returned her hand the way she had since they’d first attempted these little messages at eleven and nine. They’d gotten much better since then -- and sneakier.

She knew Bran was as disillusioned with the Church as she was, both of them favoring their father’s more agnostic philosophy. Still, it was an expectation that they attend and Arya never quite felt like dealing with the inevitable breakdown from her mother that would occur at the refusal. The theatrics Cat had gone through when Arya came out as bisexual had been enough for one lifetime. 

U-N-J-O

Arya waited for him to process “you and Jojen,” in his head.

S-T-O-P

Arya shot him a look that said _ it was worth a shot _.

They pretended to be engrossed in the sermon of the day for a moment when Catelyn’s scrutinizing eyes traveled their way. When she returned her gaze to the front he tapped another message out.

U-N-G

_ You and G? _

Arya thought her blood might actually boil. 

H-O-W

Bran surprised her by tapping back G-U-E-S-S-E-D.

She had so much she wanted to say, but everyone had risen to their feet as the organist began playing and communion was brought up. Arya had planned on talking to him after she changed into something more comfortable at home, but before she had the chance Rickon had knocked on her door.

“Come in,” she called across the expansive room and her youngest brother poked his head in. “What’s up?”

“Dad wants to talk to you,” Rickon said. “He’s in his office.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.” She gave up looking for the care instructions on Sansa’s dress and headed towards the front of the house. Her father’s office was a beautiful two-story room off the main foyer of the house with bookshelves lining the walls, a stone fireplace, and a sturdy oak desk in the center of the room. When Arya arrived outside the french doors that he used to block out the constant noise in the rest of the house, she could see that he was on the phone and snuck quietly into the space. He looked up as she eased the door shut behind her and grinned, motioning that he was almost done with his call. 

“I understand your perspective,” Ned was saying, “but this would be a big change. I just think we should take more time and handle the situation with care. We’ve waited this long, right? What’s another few months?”

She meandered about the room as the person on the other end of the call spoke at length, fingers skimming over the spines of the books until she reached a portion of the bookshelf that she and her siblings had deemed ‘the shrine’ when they were younger. The centerpiece was a portrait of Ned and Cat on their wedding day -- him in a classic tuxedo and her in the type of extravagant wedding gown that only a Catholic wedding in the early 90’s could have demanded. The rest of the shelf was a collection of senior portraits, graduation photos, and university pennants. Arya scanned the shelves until she reached her little section, cringing a little at the senior portrait. She’d had a wicked bruise on her cheek that makeup could only do so much to cover, and the photographer had gone a little overboard in their attempts to retouch it. It ended up looking like a headshot for a children’s beauty pageant instead of a senior portrait and Arya thought she would have preferred to just see the bruise. 

Their pennants hung along the top of the built-in shelf, ordered from oldest to youngest. One from the New York Institute of Technology, where Theon had gotten his associate’s degree, Cornell for Jon, Notre Dame and Columbia for Robb, UCLA for Sansa, and another Cornell one for Arya. Bran was still weighing his offers but whichever school he chose would soon join the colorful little garland. 

Her father ran a hand through his hair as the person on the other end of the call finished speaking and Arya couldn’t help but grin at the realization that it was a bit more salt than pepper these days. “And you know that I agree, but we need to be mindful, Renly. You know I prefer transparency, but I think it might be best if it came out after the fact.”

She wandered over to the other side of the room where the large windows looked out onto the tree-lined driveway. They had planted a butterfly garden beneath the glass when she was a little girl and Arya couldn’t count the hours she had spent watching butterflies and bumblebees drift between the colorful blooms. She settled on the padded bench that Ned had built just for her and peeked out at the plants below. It was early in the season and all she could see so far were a few tiny purple flowers that had forced their way up through the chilly ground. 

She hated it, but they made Arya think of Gendry and the story he’d told her about his mom. She suddenly found her fingers itching for her phone, the closest thing she could get to him, but she’d left it on her bed. She took a deep breath and tried to focus on something other than the realization that she missed the easy way that they seemed to relax each other after less than forty-eight hours apart. 

“I suppose that would be an acceptable compromise, as long as it’s done in person,” Ned carried on, then made a few sounds of agreement. “Alright. Arya just arrived, so if you'll excuse me... mhmm, you too." And with that he hung up.

Arya took a seat in one of the chairs on the opposite side of his desk. Sometimes she wished he didn’t work so much, but Ned hadn’t grown his grandfather’s small business into the country’s most successful consulting firm by taking extra days off. Still, Arya wondered sometimes what it would have been like to grow up without all the money. She supposed it didn’t change anything to wonder now. 

“You used to sit on this side,” Ned reminded her, referring to the days when Arya would sit on his lap as he talked on the phone with investors and clients, crayons flying over a page of printer paper as she drew one picture after the next for him. Arya grinned at the memory and tried to put thoughts of Gendry out of her mind for now. Meera had given her a lot to think about the day before and now she had Bran to deal with as well…

“Well, if we both tried to sit in that chair now I’m pretty sure we’d break it,” she said. 

Ned laughed outright at the thought and Arya couldn’t help but join in. “I’ve missed you, Sunshine.”

“I’ve missed you too. Now, what did you want to talk to me about? If this is about Rickon’s petition to turn the backyard into an obstacle course, you should know I only signed it because he bribed me.”

“This isn’t about your corruption,” Ned chuckled. “I actually wanted to talk to you about Gendry.”

“Gendry?” Arya felt her blood run cold. Had Jon told him? Had Bran?

“I know you two have gotten a lot closer over the last year or so,” Ned began and Arya had to school her features to avoid betraying her panic. 

“We have.”

Ned nodded and Arya waited for him to betray exactly what he knew. One of the things she loved most about her father was that he was direct. “And you feel like you know him well, right? You trust him? You think he’s a good man?”

_ He knows _, Arya realized. “I’m sure Jon has told you differently, but yes. He is a good man. And what the two of us do together is none of Jon’s business. We’re both consenting adults and Jon had no right to go behind my back and talk to you about it.”

Ned’s face had grown pale over the course of her outburst and he seemed to need a minute to process it all. After he had run his fingers through his hair a few times, he managed to meet her eyes once more. Arya couldn’t really blame him. She wasn’t exactly thrilled with the fact that her father now knew that she was fucking her brother’s roommate and (possibly former) best friend.

“Your brother didn’t betray your trust.” Ned assured her.

_ What? _

“Then, how did you find out?”

He shrugged. “You two seemed different around one another at your birthday dinner. And I assumed that was the cause of the argument with Jon.”

“I know this is probably now what you want to hear,” she said with reddening cheeks, “but things between me and Gendry aren’t serious.”

Her father seemed to consider that, though with less discomfort than Arya had anticipated. “You’ve never been the type to settle down, have you?”

Arya shrugged. Her chronic commitment issues weren’t exactly something she loved talking about. “I’ve never been the type to be tied down, you mean.” 

Her mother had often lamented Arya’s lack of serious romantic relationships but Arya found she couldn’t be bothered to date. She’d met plenty of people she liked, people she had chemistry with, but the pieces just never seemed to fit together quite right. The timing would be bad, she would be too busy to give the other person the time they deserved, the initial spark would flicker out after a few weeks. Whatever it was, nothing ever seemed to _fit_.

She didn’t mind. She still indulged in casual sex, so long as it was safe, and it wasn’t as if she ever felt lonely. Arya could make friends with nearly anyone, given the chance. She had simply come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t meant for long-term relationships. She wanted to travel, and her dream job involved flying all over the world to report on foreign political affairs. Who would want to put up with that?

And then there was her family. Nobody in their right mind would want to saddle themselves with that kind of insanity. Her brothers were protective, her father was silently intimidating, and her mother was impossible to please. It was just too much to ask of another person, so Arya never did.

“I asked you to come talk to me because I’m trying to understand who Gendry is,” her father said slowly. “And I still can’t seem to figure it out.”

“Well, to answer your earlier question,” Arya said, “he_ is _ a good man. He works hard and he’s honest. He’s loyal, sometimes to a fault, and he loves his family. He has a temper sometimes, but he works hard not to give into it. He’s sarcastic and stubborn, but he’s funny and patient too. He’s generous, and he’s humble, and he’s a little sentimental about his mom.”

_ And he deserves someone better for him than me, _ she finished in her head. The realization made her stomach sink like a stone in a lake. _ He deserves stability and openness and all the other things that I can’t offer. _

“Does that help? Do you understand him now?”

Ned seemed lost in thought, which Arya didn’t quite understand, but didn’t worry about either. “I think I might, yes.”

As soon as Arya got back to her room she typed up a text to Gendry.

** _Arya: Jon and I will be back Friday afternoon. Can you come over? We need to talk._ **

She hated the words, even as she typed them out and then hit ‘send’ on her phone screen.

_ It’s better this way _ , she told herself. Maybe Jon and Gendry could move past this. Gendry wouldn’t lose his best friend. He could find a girl that would settle down with him and have a couple kids. _ And I’ll be happy for him, _ she lied.

** _Gendry: Okay. Lmk when you get back._ **

He didn’t text her again for the rest of break and she didn’t reach out either. Meera needled her about her lackluster attitude when they went hiking on Wednesday but Arya decided not to tell her about her decision. She was dreading her talk with Gendry, but couldn’t let herself be swayed.

* * *

They said their goodbyes on Friday morning and loaded up the car for the drive home. Catelyn asked if they were sure they couldn’t stay another night or two, but they both insisted that they needed to get back to school and get things ready for the week ahead.

“Theon knows,” Jon said as they merged onto the highway. “About you and Gendry, I mean.”

“How? I told you not to talk about it,” Arya hissed.

“I didn’t tell him anything. He said he saw you guys at your birthday dinner and got Gendry to admit what was going on between you. I guess he’s better than me and Robb at picking up on that kind of thing.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Arya told him. “I’m ending things with Gendry when we get back.”

She tried to be angry, but she was tired. She had been tending the flickering flame of her rage for a week now but it felt like little more than a glowing ember in her chest. She could try fanning it and feeding it, but it would eventually die out.

“Why? I thought you liked him.”

“Because I don’t want him to get the wrong idea about where this is going. Shouldn’t you be happy? This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“I wanted my best friend to not screw my little sister in the first place,” he grumbled.

“Yeah, well we all want things we don’t get.”

John shot her a glance from the driver’s seat. “And what's that supposed to mean?”

“It means whatever the fuck you want it to mean,” she spat, turning in her seat so she was facing the window. “Just don’t be an asshat to Gendry when we get back. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

They didn’t talk again until Jon stopped for gas and asked what she wanted for lunch. Once they had eaten and gotten back on the road, it was back to silence. They just listened to the radio and watched the green and grey landscape go by. 

* * *

Gendry was already at her apartment when they arrived. Arya spotted his truck parked in the lot out front when Jon pulled up in front of the building and felt herself tense. She thought she’d have more time to prepare for this. 

“Do you need help with your bag?” 

Arya shook her head. “I’ve got it.”

  
  
“Okay. Well, I’ll talk to you soon, then.”   
  


Arya hefted her bag, pulling out her keys. “Will you?”

“Arya,” Jon started, but she wasn’t in the mood.

“You know how to reach me,” she said and shut the car door.

Jon watched her walk up to the building and made sure she made it inside alright. Once the door closed behind her, she pushed her fight with her brother out of her mind and focused on what was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. _ He’ll be okay _, she reminded herself and took the first step.


	9. Ocean Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya's choice has consequences, even if she can't see them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics and chapter title by Billie Eilish. I also seriously considered "When the Party's Over" for this chapter, so if you like to listen while you read, I'd queue that one up too!

_ _

_ No fair _

_ You really know how to make me cry _

_ When you gimme those ocean eyes _

_ I'm scared _

_ I've never fallen from quite this high _

_ Falling into your ocean eyes _

_ Those ocean eyes _

  
  


Gendry was standing in the middle of the living room when she walked in, balanced on a stool as he unscrewed one of the bulbs from the fixture in the ceiling. They both froze in place at the sound of her bag hitting the floor, blue eyes locked on grey. “What are you doing?”

“The bulb burned out while you were gone,” he explained. “I thought I’d replace it before you got back. Sorry, I didn’t mean to ambush you, I just thought you’d be back later.”

“No, don’t apologize. Saves me the effort of texting you.” She slipped out of her jacket and shoes while Gendry finished replacing the bulb and put everything away in the most uncomfortable silence she had ever experienced. They had never had trouble being silent around each other, but this quiet was heavy with dread and Arya knew he felt it just as acutely as she did.

“I can come back if you want,” he offered. “I know you wanted to… to talk, but I can let you settle in first, if you want.”

_ Just rip the bandage off, _ she told herself. “No, that’s fine. We can talk now. Do you want to sit down?”

He followed her into the living room and perched on the end of the chaise as if he needed to be ready to run at any given moment. Arya tucked herself into the corner on the other end of the small sofa, resisting the urge to curl completely in on herself.  _ He’ll be alright, _ she told herself for the hundredth time.  _ As long as he’s happy, I can live with that. _

“Arya, what’s this about? I mean, I’m no therapist but I know that no good conversation ever started with ‘we need to talk.’”

Arya fumbled for the right thing to say, surprising even herself with the next thing that came out of her mouth. “Did you talk to Theon? The day after my birthday, I mean.”

Gendry nodded slowly. “We ran into each other in the bathroom at the restaurant.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said… he said that we were approaching a point of no return and that I needed to put a stop to things between us if I had any doubts.”

“That was weeks ago. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I didn’t have any doubts, but I’m guessing by the look on your face that you do.”

“Gendry, I didn’t… I mean, I thought… fuck, why is this so hard?” She ran a hand through her hair, a habit she had picked up from him. “Gendry, I can’t do this anymore.”

He swallowed hard but was otherwise unaffected. “I’m going to need you to be more specific.”

“This,” she blurted out, heart hammering in her chest. “You and me. Us. The sex, the sneaking around, the secrets. All of it. I’m done.”

There was a long beat of silence, then Gendry spoke again.

“Is this about Jon?”

She shook her head. “No. I just… I need things to go back to the way they were.”

Gendry still looked confused, but nodded. “Okay. I can respect that. We promised to always be friends, right? I can do that.”

His words didn’t bring her half as much relief as she’d been expecting. “I want that too. I just… I think I just need some time first. I’m going to need some distance.”   
  
“Did I do something wrong?”

She couldn’t bear the look of guilt in his eyes, the poorly concealed hurt on his face. It took every ounce of resolve in her body to not throw herself at him and try to take it all back.  _ I’m not enough for him _ , she reminded herself. 

“No, Gendry. Your only mistake was letting me drag you down into my mess,” she tried to laugh but it came out strangled. 

He seemed to think about that for a long moment before standing up. “Well, I’m sure you want to unpack and stuff. I won’t hold you up.”

She followed him out of the living area and watched in silence as he put on his shoes, not sure what to say. What was there to say? She fiddled with a loose string on her torn jeans to keep her hands occupied and her eyes off of him.

“And Arya?” He had paused with his hand on the door handle. “You know I don’t regret it, right? Despite all the secrecy, I don’t regret being with you.”

_ Neither do I _ , she thought sadly. But all she said was, “I know.”

He gave a short nod at that and walked out the door, leaving Arya to stand in silence. She realized, as she leaned against the edge of the counter, that she was exhausted. She’d hardly done anything all day, but all she wanted was to crawl into bed and sleep for a few hours. She picked her bag up and carried it back to her room, leaving it in front of her closet to be dealt with later.

When she turned back to the bed, her heart constricted. Sitting atop her comforter, perfectly folded, was Gendry’s sweatshirt.  _ The _ sweatshirt. The one she had coveted since their first night together. Taking a deep breath, she picked it up and turned back to the closet. She had to reach as far as she could to put it on the shelf that spanned from wall to wall and she tried not to think of the way Gendry would no doubt take it gently from her hands and easily put it where she wanted it, then tease her and call her m’lady.

When the closet doors were shut and she had pulled her curtains closed, Arya stripped down to her underwear and crawled into bed.  _ We’ll be okay _ , she told herself. She repeated it in her head a hundred times before finally drifting off to sleep.

* * *

She woke a few hours later with a grumbling stomach and a missed text message from her brother.

** _Jon: Ygritte and I are going out for dinner tomorrow night. Nothing fancy, but we’d love for you to come. She’s really excited to meet you. My treat._ **

She put the phone on its charger and grabbed one of Robb’s old t-shirts from her dresser, letting the oversized garment flutter around her thighs as she made her way to the kitchen and examined the meager contents of her fridge. She made a mental note to go shopping before classes resumed and pulled a flatbread pizza out of the freezer. As the oven preheated, Arya wandered back to her room to retrieve her phone, feeling a bit more prepared to deal with her brother. 

** _Arya: Sure. Time and place?_ **

He texted back just as she was pulling the pizza out of the oven, giving her the name of a tapas place they both liked and telling her that they could meet there at 7:00 the next night. She said she’d be there, then scrolled idly through her instagram feed as she ate. She almost wished she’d neglected her homework over break so she would have something to distract herself with now. No amount of mindless browsing could ease the feeling that she should be watching Gendry do the dishes right about now, palming the bulge in his pants and kissing the back of his neck until he whipped her ass with the dish towel and told her to make herself useful. She needed to get out.

** _Arya: Just got back today and I’m already bored. You doing anything tonight?_ **

** _Lommy: House party at 9. You in?_ **

** _Arya: Send me the address._ **

** _Lommy: I can drive you if you want. Parking is shit._ **

** _Arya: Thanks! LMK when to be ready._ **

** _Lommy: I’ll pick you up at 9 so we can be fashionably late._ **

** _Arya: I would expect no less from you._ **

** _Arya: PS how slutty should I dress?_ **

** _Lommy: Verrrrrrry. Lots of sexy art hoes to impress. ;)_ **

Arya grinned down at the screen, then went to clean up her dinner and get ready. She had less than an hour until Lommy was set to arrive, though she was almost certain he’d be late. After a quick shower, she found a short black skirt to wear with a lacy bralette and mesh shirt, then added a few earrings and a necklace that dipped suggestively between her breasts. When she was finally done, she was short on time and decided to just smudge on a bit of eyeliner and mascara and call it a day.

Lommy was late, as predicted, but only by a few minutes. When the light in his car illuminated the interior, she could see that he had changed his hair to a vibrant pink. He’d been cycling through hair colors for as long as she’d known him and even gotten the nickname “greenhands” after losing a valiant battle with a bottle of green dye during their freshman year.

“Good enough?” She spun to give him a look at her outfit before she ducked into the passenger’s seat. 

“Could be sluttier, but I suppose it’ll do,” he teased. “If I weren’t so painfully gay, I would totally do you.”

“Thanks, I think?”

They chatted about everything they’d done over the previous week as Lommy navigated the dark streets. 

“I’m surprised you came out tonight,” he said, turning onto a more residential street. “Aren’t Fridays usually ‘Arya night’ for you?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t feel like staying home tonight.”

The party was just ramping up when they arrived, music already thumping through the speakers in the living room as Lommy led her to the kitchen for a drink. With a solo cup in hand, she headed to the steadily filling living room. People were already swaying and moving to the beat of the music that blasted through the oversized speakers. Arya took a long sip of whatever Lommy had mixed her, wincing a bit at the potency of it, then let the music guide her as she started to move. 

Lommy soon joined her, twirling her under his arm as she slowly emptied her cup. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but she decided she was due for another drink. Leaving her friend in the capable hands of some film major whose name she’d forgotten, Arya headed for the kitchen once again. 

  
  


She set her cup in front of her and reached for a mixer, trying very hard to not think about the way Gendry always mixed their drinks as they queued up a new show on Netflix. Those Fridays were over now. She was going to have to mix something up for herself. 

Once she’d managed a palleteable screwdriver, Arya turned to go back to the living room, nearly walking right into someone in the process.

“Sorry,” she half shouted over the noise coming from the next room over. “Didn’t see you there.”

Sober Arya would have noticed that the girl in front of her was high. Tipsy Arya only noticed that she was hot, with long legs emerging from the hem of her shorts and crimson streaks in her bleached hair. Two hours later, drunk Arya only noticed that she was a pretty good kisser and that her hands were slowly traveling up under Arya’s skirt.

“You wanna go upstairs?” The girl just barely leaned back, panting a bit as she said it.

Arya nodded, not concerning herself with the pit that had formed in her stomach or the realization that she didn’t know this girl’s name. She let the stranger lead her away from the thumping music and the mass of writhing bodies on the makeshift dance floor, and deeper into the house. There was a staircase next to the bathroom near the back of the house. Arya could smell weed wafting up from the basement, but it dissipated as they climbed the steps. 

The girl grabbed Arya by the hand and led her down the narrow hallway of the old house, then pulled her into a small bedroom on the left. Arya wondered if it was hers or if she was simply a guest here, like Arya herself. She didn’t bother chasing down that train of thought when the door closed and she promptly had her back pushed up against it.

It was nice, her hazy mind thought, to be touched again. She hadn’t been touched like this since… no, she wouldn’t think about him. She was enjoying this. 

She was enjoying the hungry kisses and the wandering hands and the smell of weed and perfume. It didn’t matter that the kisses felt wrong without the scratch of stubble accompanying them. It didn’t matter that the hands were too soft. It didn’t matter that the smell wasn’t men’s body wash and motor oil. 

It didn’t matter.

It was all she could think about.

She pulled back, panting as the other girl kissed her neck. It took a moment, but soon the bleach blonde pulled back too. “What’s wrong? I thought you wanted to fuck,” she pouted.

“I do,” Arya insisted. She hoped the other girl found it more convincing than Arya did.

“You don’t seem like it.”

“No, I do. Really.” She reached for the other girl once more, hoping she could kiss her worries away.

Easier said than done. 

She braced a hand on her companion’s chest. “I’m sorry, you’re right. I can’t do this.”

“You nervous? Is this your first time with a girl? I promise I can make it memorable,” she winked.

“No, it’s not that. I just… I just can’t.”

She didn’t wait to hear what the other girl had to say, just turned around and made her way back down the hall. She found Lommy on the dance floor grinding up against the guy they’d met earlier in the night. “I don’t feel good,” she shouted over the crowd. “I’m going home.”

She thought about taking his keys, not wanting him to do something stupid like try to drive himself home. But, she thought better of it when she saw the looks he was exchanging with the film student. Arya had a feeling he wouldn’t be going home any time soon.

She made the idiotic descision of waiting for her Lyft on the front porch of the house. It was only March and the night was still cold enough to leave frost glittering on every surface that the streetlights could reach. Still, the cold sobered her, helped her think, and forced her to confront the real reason she was leaving.

Gendry.

Her body missed him, even if she wouldn’t allow her heart to. Maybe it was some sort of cosmic connection, or the simple fact that he knew her better than anyone else by now. Either way, her skin seemed aware that he knew best how to touch her, kiss her, make her come undone. And now that she’d had it… well, anything less was going to be hard to settle for.

She was distracted from her inner rambling by the arrival of the red SUV she’d been waiting on. She crawled in back and greeted the driver, a young woman that Arya guessed might be a grad student. The app said her name was Diana, though Arya didn’t know if it mattered much.

“All partied out already?”

Arya shrugged. “Just more tired than I thought I was.”

She kept making small talk with Diana until they arrived in front of her apartment building, then got out and climbed up the stairs as quickly as she could. The clock on the oven told her it was just past midnight when she walked in the door. A new day, technically.

Arya didn’t bother with her nightly routine, just walked into her room and stripped down to her panties. As she crawled into bed, she tried to think of anything but the way he used to press her into this mattress and kiss her neck. Gendry wasn’t hers anymore… he never had been.

After tossing and turning for half an hour, she finally got out of bed and went to the closet. Maybe it made her a masochist, or maybe it just made her an idiot, but she reached up to the top shelf and pulled down the hoodie. Once she had pulled it on Arya crawled back into bed, buried her nose in the shoulder, and finally let herself cry.

* * *

She looked like death when she woke up. Makeup stained the delicate skin around her puffy eyes, her hair was a wreck, and there was drool crusted on the corner of her mouth. She’d avoided a hangover, thankfully, but she was still parched and wandered into the kitchen. 

In the midmorning silence, something about her apartment felt haunted. He wasn’t there, but Arya felt like the memories she and Gendry had created in the space were still swirling around. She could almost see him diligently washing the dishes as Arya tried to sneak a hand into his jeans, hear him laugh as they sat on the rug together doing homework, smell the familiar scent of his clothes like she had when she fell asleep on his chest, taste the candy they’d binged on during their Valentine’s Day movie night, feel his strong hands guiding her hips as she moved over him on the little black sofa. 

The shower brought little reprieve from the memories, even when she blasted her music. She tried cleaning, hoping she could dust and vacuum the past two months away. None of it worked. 

After a modest lunch, she pulled her shoes and jacket on and headed downstairs to her car. She texted Lommy as she browsed the aisles of the grocery store, simultaneously pulling what she needed from the shelves. As expected, her friend had crashed at the party house. 

As much as she dawdled, grocery shopping could only last so long. By 2:30 she was back at the apartment trying to figure out a way to occupy herself until dinner with Jon and Ygritte. Lommy was too hung over to hang out, most of her other friends weren’t coming back to campus until the next day, and her two top choices were… not really options at the moment.

Admitting defeat, she went back to her bedroom and sat down at the desk. With her favorite playlist on, she opened up her resume and got to work. 

By the time she needed to get ready to leave, she’d polished up her resume to perfection, researched a few different internships, applied for two different summer jobs in the city, and emailed her guidance counselors about summer opportunities on campus.

She didn’t dress up for dinner, just settled on jeans and a sweater that Sansa had insisted on buying for her when the two of them had gone to kill time at the mall last winter break. Her eyelids were still puffy, but she hoped a good amount of mascara would hide that fact. Traffic was light since so many students had gone home for break and not returned yet. 

All it took was a quick text from her parking spot to find out that Jon had grabbed them a table in the back. Arya told the hostess she was meeting someone and scanned the tables for his dark hair. Finally, she spotted him near the corner and her heart nearly skipped a beat when she saw the swath of red hair that spilled over the chair across from him. 

_ Sansa? No, it can’t be _ , she realized. Sansa was on a plane home from California. Besides, she had never had so much texture to her hair and the shade was just a bit too light to be hers. This had to be Jon’s girlfriend.

Her brother waved when he saw her approaching and the woman across from him turned to look at her. 

_ Definitely not Sansa _ , she thought with a mixture of amusement and disappointment. She could really use some girl talk right now, she realized.

Ygritte’s only apparent similarity to Arya’s sister was her hair. Her face was softer in shape than Sansa’s and covered in freckles, and she was shorter and more athletically built too. As she got closer, Arya noticed that she had pretty eyes -- a bluish grey color that couldn’t quite make up its mind -- and her smile was warm. Still, there was a glint of mischief behind it that Arya thought she just might like.

“You must be Arya,” she said. Her voice suited her, Arya thought, and she detected a hint of an accent in the way the redhead formed her vowels. Jon had never mentioned where she was from, but Arya thought she might be Canadian.

“I am,” she said, offering a hand to shake. “You must be Jon’s girlfriend.”

“Ygritte Wilde,” she confirmed, gripping Arya’s hand firmly.

Arya leaned in close to stage whisper in the other girl’s ear. “You know you’re way out of his league, right?”

“Hey,” Jon protested. “I’m right here!”

Both of the young women laughed at his protests and Arya took the open seat at Ygritte’s side without giving her brother a hug. He looked a little dejected over that, but Arya didn’t feel bad about it. It served him right for refusing to mind his own business. 

“I can’t believe it’s taken this long to meet you,” Ygritte said. “The way Jon goes on about you, it’s almost like I already know you.”

“Really?” Based on what Gendry had told her, it didn’t seem like Jon and his girlfriend did a ton of talking. Then again, Gendry hadn’t exactly been home a lot lately. Arya shook her head slightly, trying to push away the thoughts - both of Jon and Ygritte’s  _ relations _ and of Gendry.

Ygritte nodded. “The first few weeks were all ‘Arya’s the vice president of the MMA club,’ and ‘Arya writes for the school newspaper,’ and ‘Arya’s a double major.’ I almost thought he was trying to set me up with  _ you _ ,” she chuckled. “Turns out you’re just his favorite topic of conversation.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. Gendry had said something similar the first time she’d met him, now that she thought about it.

_ “Jon talks about you guys so much, I feel like I already sort of know you.” _

After thoroughly admonishing herself for thinking about him  _ again _ , she tried changing the subject of the conversation. 

“Family is always an easy topic when you’ve got six siblings. What about you? Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

Ygritte shook her head. “Nah, just me. It wasn’t so bad though. My mom and I lived in a really small town when I was little. One of those places where everyone knows everyone and you can’t get away with anything, you know?”

Arya didn’t really, but she nodded anyway. A waitress appeared, offering her a strawberry lemonade that Jon must have ordered before she arrived. They ordered a few dishes for the table, including a paella that Arya loved.

When their waitress had left, Arya turned to Yritte again. “So, how did you guys meet? Jon never told me.”

“I almost shot him in the face.”

Arya waited for the punchline, but Ygritte’s face remained dead serious. “Wait,  _ what _ ?”

“I was doing a report on liability lawsuits and I decided to use the range that Cornell’s archery club goes to as a case study. The point was to go to the range, look at what type of legal documents they use, what security measures are in place, what the range rules are…”

“And then immediately break them?” Ygritte arched an amused eyebrow in Jon’s direction. 

“For the thousandth time, I didn’t  _ mean _ to,” Jon said, defeat evident in his voice. Apparently this was something she teased him about on a regular basis.

“Well, whether he meant to or not, he almost got two feet of fiberglass shot right through his pretty face,” Ygritte smirked. “So naturally, I went to go ask him what the hell he was doing and he started stuttering at me like an idiot.”

“In my defense, she kind of hit me with a one-two punch of almost shooting me in the face and then looking like  _ that _ ,” he said, gesturing to his girlfriend’s pretty face, fiery hair, and slender figure.

Ygritte rolled her eyes. “Always the smooth talker.”

“It worked on you, didn’t it?”

“It did,” she sighed. “It took twenty minutes for him to go from apologizing for walking in front of my target to convincing me to have lunch with him after practice.”

Despite still being a little bit pissed at Jon, Arya really did like Ygritte. As they ate, she kept asking questions about the older girl, learning about her and keeping the attention away from herself. She found out that she had been right about the redhead’s nationality. Ygritte said she was from Ontario and came to the US to study for her master’s degree in Anthropology. She had been shooting since she was a kid (apparently there wasn’t much else to do in her small town) so she joined the archery club. Jon was practically glowing when he cut in to tell Arya that she was being considered for the next year’s summer olympics. 

“Nothing is settled just yet, but it’s a possibility. If I go are you going to come with me?”

Jon agreed that he would and Arya said she would make the whole family watch her compete in their home theater. At this Ygritte had demanded to know exactly how big their house was, which led to Jon sheepishly trying to describe the manor as humbly as he possibly could. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Ygritte didn’t come from a particularly well-off family, but the subject didn’t seem like a sore one. 

By the time she got up to leave Arya had decided that she was thoroughly charmed by Ygritte and  _ slightly _ less mad at Jon. 

“Let me know if you want to learn how to shoot a bow some time,” Ygritte said. “I’d love to teach you. We can make a girls’ night of it.”

“Okay, but as long as we drink  _ after _ the shooting lesson.”

“It’s more fun if you do it before,” Ygritte said with a glimmer of mirth in her eyes.

“It’s more fun if you don’t do it at all,” Jon grumbled. “Have you forgotten that you’re underage?”

Ygritte waved a dismissive hand. “That’s a stupid law anyway. She’d be legal in Canada.”

Arya grinned at the other woman’s easy dismissal of Jon’s protests. “I’d love to learn how to shoot. Have Jon give you my number and we can try to find a time that works.”

“I’ll try to teach him how to relax a little while I’m at it,” Ygritte winked.

* * *

Sunday was spent catching up on sleep, preparing what she could for the week ahead, and going over more internship postings. When Monday came around, she hit the ground running. Between assignments, classes, club meetings, and deadlines for the newspaper, Arya barely had time to eat and shower. Which was good, because she realized that she had come to dread the moments of silence that allowed her mind to wander. Every winding train of thought seemed to bring her back to  _ him _ . 

She’d folded up his hoodie on Saturday night and tucked it back into her closet, shutting the door with some finality. If only it were that simple. Nothing about it was simple, but she was trying her best and dreading Friday night.

She hit the gym hard after her classes got out and convinced one of the freshmen from the MMA club to spar with her for an hour and a half. He was a bit of a novice and not a very well-matched opponent for her, but teaching him some new moves helped keep her mind occupied. By the time she was done her body was crying out for a reprieve. 

Back in her apartment, she showered with unmatched efficiency, then headed to the kitchen to start dinner. She settled on a simple pasta dish and set the water boiling. Despite the music drifting through her speakers, her mind began wandering as she waited. 

Saturday’s impulse to call Sansa had returned in full force, though Arya was hesitant to talk to her sister about her current situation. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her, but Sansa had always been a romantic and clearly hadn’t outgrown that if her latest scheme was anything to go by. Arya was decidedly  _ not _ . Then again, maybe that’s exactly what she needed - an outside opinion with a fresh perspective.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she picked her phone up and tapped on Sansa’s contact info. 

There was a time, when she was a child, that the idea of finding comfort in her sister would have made Arya laugh aloud. Sansa had always been the perfect daughter, at least in their mother’s eyes, and Arya had found that nothing she did would measure up. So, she stopped trying. She embraced her role as the rebel child and learned to find joy in the endless frustration that it caused her mother. 

Los Angeles had been a wakeup call for the both of them. Sansa had practically begged to join their father in the land of celebrities and sunshine. Arya had been forced along, despite her very loud protests. It was partially her own fault. She’d nearly gotten expelled from the private school her mother had insisted on, and Catelyn wasn’t keen on the idea of Arya tainting the Stark family’s reputation at the high school - not when Bran and Rickon would have to follow in her footsteps.

And so, she’d been banished to Los Angeles with no friends, no Jon, no Bran, no Nymeria, and no more fucks to give. Of course, Sansa’s best friend Jeyne got to tag along since her father had been roped into the whole stupid ordeal as well. As if it wasn’t bad enough being stranded on the west coast, she  _ still _ had to put up with Sansa and Jeyne tittering over this celebrity or that as they flipped through teen magazines. 

The final straw had come when Sansa revealed to their father that Arya had been suspended from school for fighting. It didn’t matter that she had acted in self-defense, apparently. Arya was sent to her room to await her punishment while Sansa and their father talked. Arya had called her sister a “goody two-shoes, airheaded little bitch,” and sealed her fate.

They spent the next six months in joint counseling.

And suddenly Sansa was the resentful one, forced to squeeze in a weekly therapy session between school, homework, dance, choir, and student council meetings. They’d spent the first three sessions just working through the incident that had landed them there. After that, they’d actually had a bit of a breakthrough.

The root of the problem, it seemed, was insecurity. Arya’s fear that she’d never measure up to Sansa, and Sansa’s own fear that she’d never live up to her parents’ expectations of her. Once they realized they were both chasing an impossible standard, things had actually changed. Sansa even started standing up to Jeyne whenever she started in on Arya’s looks and unusual hobbies. 

She’d even gotten a letter (not an email, an actual handwritten letter on sunflower stationary) when Jeyne and Sansa were in their Freshman year at UCLA. Apparently she’d had a bit of therapy too and realized that all the terrible things she’d said to Arya had been out of pure jealousy. It made sense once Arya thought about it. Jeyne had no siblings, no mother, and a father who worked all the time. Arya’s life must have looked like a fairytale to her. No wonder she’d convinced Sansa that she was more her sister than Arya was.

The letter hadn’t been enough to erase the past, but they could at least be civil now, whenever their paths crossed. Jeyne even made an effort to learn a bit about MMA in order to hold conversations with her. Sansa had been beside herself with happiness when she spotted the two of them chatting over cake at her last birthday party.

The ringing on the other end of the line stopped, pulling Arya from her reverie. “Hello?”

“Hi Sans. Do you have a minute?”

“Yes, of course! I’m dying for a study break.”

  
  
“LSAT prep?”

Her sister sighed on the other end and Arya could almost picture her running a hand through her auburn hair. “Well, I need at least a 175, so yeah. Every day.”

“I’m proud of you,” Arya reminded her. “Even if you are way too good for Joffrey Lannister.”

“Arya,” Sansa admonished her, “you just don’t get it. Someday when you’re in love, you’ll understand. It’s worth fighting for, no matter what.” 

These conversations always went nowhere fast, so Arya changed the subject. She’d suddenly lost the nerve to talk about the Gendry situation with Sansa, which was rare enough that it unsettled her. She picked an easier subject to see if she could work her courage back up again.

“You’ll never guess who I got to meet last week.”

“Who?”

“Jon’s girlfriend.”

She heard some shuffling on the other end as Sansa undoubtedly moved into her favorite position for exchanging gossip - flat on her back with her feet propped up on the bed frame. “Tell me  _ everything _ . What’s she like?”

Arya spent the next several minutes recounting the dinner they’d had, leaving out the awkwardness created by her fight with Jon. She even recounted the story of how they had met as well as she could. As she talked, she cooked until her dinner was ready to be plated.

“She’s going to take me to the archery range next week,” Arya said, pouring sauce over her noodles. 

“I’m sure you’ll have fun.”

There was a lull in the conversation and Arya wondered if she should bring Gendry up, but Sansa spoke up before she can figure out what to say.

“I should probably get packing. My flight leaves super early tomorrow.”

“Yeah, for sure.”

“Was there something else you wanted to talk about? You seem… off.”

“Just tired,” she lied. “The first week back is always rough.”

Sansa agreed, wished her well, then the two signed off for the night.

In the deafening silence that followed, she almost considered calling Lommy again. Then she remembered the disastrous party from the weekend before and thought better of it. Instead she took her food into the living room, started up the next documentary in her queue, and tried to ignore the empty spot next to her on the sofa.

* * *

  
  


The ensuing week dragged by in the same way that the last one had. Arya tried her best to keep herself distracted, throwing herself into her schoolwork, her extracurriculars, and her ongoing search for a summer internship. By the time Friday night rolled around again, she’d nearly run herself into the ground.

Jon had tried texting her all week. It was more effort than he’d put in all semester, but Arya hardly replied. She was still hurt and confused, and still trying to find a way to move forward. Still, she couldn’t exactly ignore it when he called her in the middle of her fifth episode of Forensic Files. 

“Hello?”

There was a beat of silence, then Jon spoke. “Hey. Where are you right now?”

“Home. Why? I’m not late to meet Ygritte, am I? I swear we agreed on Saturday.”

“No, it’s not that. I just needed to talk to you.”

He sounded serious. Well, more serious than usual. “What’s wrong?”

“I owe you an apology. I didn’t want to give you one because I thought that I was justified, but you were right about pretty much everything. I’ve been self-centered and selfish. I should have made more effort to see you. Maybe if I had done that, you wouldn’t have felt the need to sneak around behind my back.

“And you were right to call me out about the thing with Gendry too. You’re twenty years old, whether I like it or not. What you do with your body, and who you do it with, isn’t my business. I shouldn’t have treated you like a child.”

Arya tried to swallow down the lump in her throat, though she wasn’t even sure why she was getting so teary at her brother’s words. 

“Look,” Jon continued, “do you think we can talk about this in person? I’m at my apartment right now.”

Arya considered it for a long moment. She’d already given up Gendry, maybe she didn’t have to lose Jon too. “Okay. I’ll be there soon.”

“Great. I’ll talk to you then.” She could almost hear Jon smiling. “I love you, little sister.”

“I love you too,” she admitted.

  
  


All in all, it took her fifteen minutes to get to Jon and Gendry’s apartment. She’d tried very hard not to think about the Gendry part as she drove over, but she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d be there. She didn’t know if she was ready to see him, despite their resolution to remain friends.

Was he mad at her? Would he be resentful? Did he even care at all? For all Arya knew, he already had some girl spending every other night in his bed. 

The thought made her stomach twist.

She parked where she could, finding that the lot in front of the building was already crowded by the guests of other tenants. It had started raining on the drive over, so Arya dashed for the door as quickly as she could, not bothering to knock before trying the handle. Jon usually left the door unlocked when he was expecting company. She was still surprised when the handle turned beneath her fingertips, allowing her into the unit.

She shucked her wet shoes off and left them on the mat before following the narrow hall into the living room. She thought she had heard someone talking when she arrived but it was silent now. Maybe Jon had been on the phone?

She realized why nobody was talking when she rounded the corner and her eyes locked on Gendry’s.

_ Oh. _


	10. Overjoyed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jon knows one (1) thing and he's going to make damn sure everyone else does too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to Gendry's POV! Hopefully you guys have forgiven me for the last update. If not, I hope that this chapter at least makes you forget how upset I made you. 
> 
> Title and Lyrics by Bastille.

_ Oh I feel overjoyed _

_ When you listen to my words _

_ I see them sinking in _

_ Oh I see them crawling underneath your skin _

  
  


Gendry tried to ignore the sound of his roommate’s voice on the other side of the wall. His words were too muffled to make out, but Gendry guessed by his tone that it was serious. It was also none of his business, he reminded himself.

He tried to get back to work, returning his attention to the laptop on his desk. He didn’t like what he saw there much better. His inbox was open and right there at the top was the email he’d been dreading.

It was the response from Stormbreaker and he couldn’t bring himself to open it.  _ The worst they can say is no _ , he reminded himself. He counted down in his head, then clicked on the email.

_ Dear Mr. Waters, _

_ Thank you for applying to our summer apprenticeship program! Due to the number of applications we received this year, Stormbreaker has committed to taking on 10 apprentices at our New York City laboratories. After careful consideration, the apprenticeship committee has determined that you are an ideal candidate for the program and would like to offer you an interview at your earliest convenience.  _

_ Please respond to this email to select a date and time to meet with a member of the apprenticeship committee, or call our front desk and ask for me by name. Congratulations on making it to this exciting stage of the selection process! I look forward to meeting you. _

_ With Regard, _

_ Martyn Penrose _

_ Vice President of Operations _

_ Stormbreaker Inc. _

_ New York, New York _

It wasn’t a complete rejection. It wasn’t a guarantee either, but it was  _ something _ .

He itched to call Arya and tell her the news. It wasn’t the first time he’d almost pulled his phone out, only to have the night she came back crash into him like a wave. She didn’t want him, he had to remind himself. At least, not as much as he wanted her. 

Maybe he had known from the very first night that it was always meant to crash and burn. He’d certainly realized it the night of her birthday dinner. Theon had warned him, yet Gendry had traipsed past the point of no return, brimming with either hubris or stupidity. In the back of his mind, he had to admit, he had thought that he was different from the rest. 

She’d told him about her first time, given him a general idea of the many times after that, and always made it clear that none of them were permanent. Sex, to Arya, was a physical engagement with no promise for the future. His mistake had been believing that their arrangement had been born of mutual attraction instead of convenience.

Still, a part of him couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if he’d stayed that night. Would things be different if he’d admitted his feelings? No, she’d made herself clear. Their arrangement had run its course and she’d be onto someone new. Fuck, maybe she’d already found someone else.

He didn’t like to admit it but the thought of someone else’s hands on her body, someone else’s lips on hers, made him sick. Gendry urged himself to think of something else.  _ Anything else. _

Before he could divert his mind fully, there was a knock at the door. Jon had stopped talking at some point, though Gendry had been too caught up to notice. He could only assume that it was his roommate at the bedroom door.

Shutting his laptop, he stood from the little desk in the corner of his room and went to answer. Sure enough, Jon stood there with an apprehensive look on his face. “Can I talk to you?”

“You could’ve talked to me two weeks ago,” Gendry said bitterly. “Hell, you could’ve talked to me three weeks ago instead of acting like I’d stabbed you in the back and throwing a goddamn fit.”

Jon let out a breath, looking at the floor as he did. “I guess I deserved that.”

Gendry didn’t respond, just raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement. 

“Look, I owe you an apology. And I have some questions too. Can we just sit down and talk about this?”

On the one hand, he was bitter about the way Jon had been acting. After his blowup in Arya’s apartment, Jon had barely acknowledged Gendry’s existence. Which was hard to do, considering they lived in the same apartment.

On the other hand, Jon was still his friend. No matter how angry they got with one another, they were still friends. Best friends even, though Gendry suspected that Arya had stolen a portion of that title from her brother several weeks prior. 

“Alright. Anything to spare me from the constant brooding,” he said, following Jon into the living room.

They sat on the sofa, both breathing through the awkward silence until Jon spoke up.

“Look, I was out of line that night. I just… she’s my sister, you know? I don’t want to think about her sleeping with anyone, much less one of my best friends.”

“I get that,” Gendry admitted. Truth be told, if he had walked in on Shireen in a similar situation, he probably would have done the same… or worse. “But she’s an adult, Jon. We both are.”

“I know, I know. Ygritte tore me a new one for treating Arya like a child.”

Gendry smirked at that. “I always knew I liked her.”

Jon let out half a laugh at that. “Yeah, I figured.”

There was a long beat of silence in which both of them seemed lost in thought, then Jon spoke again.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Depends on the question.”

“Do you love her?”

Instinctively, Gendry threw back his response. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I didn’t ask if it mattered.”

“Fuck, Jon… I dunno. I think I could, yeah.”

Jon didn’t say anything just nodded.

“But it doesn’t matter,” Gendry repeated. “She ended things, remember? I guess she figured I wasn’t worth the trouble.”

This time Jon shook his head vigorously. “No. If anything, this is my fault. For fuck’s sake, I had enough clues to put two and two together, didn’t I? If I hadn’t gone off on you two like that, everything would have been fine.”

“I mean, you shouldn’t have freaked out like that, but we could have afforded you some honesty.”

“That would have been nice, but that also would have forced Arya to put a label on things and… well, I don’t have to tell you that she doesn’t do commitment.”

Gendry didn’t know what to say to that. He’d hoped that she just needed time to accept their relationship for what it was, but Arya’s track record spoke for itself. She didn’t do long-term relationships.

At least, not in her mind. 

His thoughts were cut off by some shuffling from the direction of the front door. Gendry figured it was Ygritte bringing Ghost back from his doggy play group, so when he looked up to see a pair of silver eyes staring back at him, his breath caught in his throat a bit. 

“Arya.”

He had practically breathed it out, just above a whisper. He wasn’t even sure she’d heard him.

“I didn’t realize you would be here.”

“I live here,” he reminded her, not ungently.

She shook her head. “Of course, I should have… never mind. Do you want to do this some other time?”

The last part had been directed towards Jon, who was already on his feet, leading her further into the apartment. 

“No, now is perfect.” 

Arya narrowed her eyes at her brother, voice dropping to an angry whisper that carried enough for Gendry to hear. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, but I don’t like being ambushed, Jon.” 

“Will you please just hear me out?” He led her to sit down on the sofa, about a foot and a half from Gendry’s own spot. 

Arya sat with a huff, crossing her arms over her chest as if to protect herself. 

“Look, I’m sorry I wasn’t upfront about this, but I needed to clear the air with you two,” Jon said, standing in front of them as if he were at the front of a lecture hall. “I messed up, and I overreacted, and I’m sorry for that. I know I don’t have all the details, but I do know that I’m at least partially responsible for breaking you two up -”

“We weren’t dating,” Arya piped up.

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” her brother said simply. “Maybe you didn’t ‘make it official’ or whatever, but you two spent as much time together as Ygritte and I do. Hell, probably even more. And you know what? I’ve never seen either of you so happy.”

“Jon…” Gendry tried in a warning tone. 

His roommate simply pressed on. “And I’ve never seen either of you as miserable as you’ve been these past couple weeks. For God’s sake, you’ve got a fucking depression beard,” he said, gesturing to Gendry’s face. He had, admittedly, been a little lax with his personal care lately. 

“And don’t think I didn’t notice that you’d been crying before dinner the other week,” he added with a look to his sister. 

Crying? What did Arya have to be crying over? She’d been stone cold when she ended things. 

Unless it had all been an act… 

“So what? You’re staging an intervention?” Arya had her eyes narrowed at Jon, clearly unimpressed with the display. 

“If that’s what you want to call getting the two most stubborn people I know in the same room, then yeah. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to pick Ghost up. We’re spending the night at Ygritte’s so you two can… talk it out.”

He left the two of them staring after him, still seated on the couch as he donned his jacket and locked the door behind him. 

“This is ridiculous,” Arya said, rising to leave.

“I should have stayed that night.”

Arya paused, then turned around to look at him with confusion on her face.

“The night you came back from break. I should have stayed. Would it have made a difference, if I had tried to work it out?”

She visibly swallowed, face going pale as she spoke. “There was nothing to work out, Gendry. I told you, you didn’t do anything wrong.”   
  


“If that was the truth, we’d be watching Netflix in your apartment right now, not arguing about who’s in the wrong here.”

“Nobody was wrong,” she insisted. “We did what was best.”

“ _ We _ didn’t do anything!  _ You _ made that choice and I’m trying to live with it. There’s a big fucking difference.”

“I don’t know what you want from me!”

“I want you to be honest! If not with me, then at least with yourself.”

They stood frozen, chests heaving as their words hung heavy in the air between them. 

“I  _ was _ honest,” Arya whispered. Her tone was such a startling change from a few moments ago that Gendry almost couldn’t believe that the words had come from her. 

“What?”

“I was honest,” she repeated. “I was honest with myself, and I realized what I was doing to you.”

“Making me happy? Yeah, I noticed that too.”

Arya shook her head, running a hand through her hair. “Gendry, I was holding you back.”

“From  _ what _ ?” His voice was completely incredulous. 

“From everything! You can’t honestly tell me you wouldn’t want more someday. A wedding? A house? Kids?”

“Not if it’s not with you.”

She shut her eyes, practically recoiling from the words. “Don’t say that.”

  
  
“I can’t lie to you, Arya.”

When her eyes opened again they were brimming with tears. “I don’t know if I can give you that, Gendry. I didn’t want you to waste your time.”

It took only two short strides to bring him right in front of her. To his great relief, she didn’t try to move away when his hands came to cradle her face. 

“Arya, look at me. The only wasted time I’m worried about is the time we’re apart. Jon was right, I’ve been fucking miserable these last couple weeks. I  _ miss you _ . I miss your smile, and your laugh, and your snarky little texts while I’m at work. 

“I don’t give two shits about that other stuff. Not right now, anyway. I care about  _ you _ . If you can look me in the eye and honestly tell me that you’ve been happier over the past two weeks than you were a month ago, I will let you leave and never talk about it again. But if you can’t, I’m going to need a better reason why I can’t kiss you right now.”

“Gendry… I… I don’t know what I’m doing.” The admission was barely whispered, hardly more than a wisp of a breath. “I’ve never felt so  _ much _ for someone before and… God, it feels like drowning sometimes. I just… it scares me, okay?”

“I’ve never felt this way before either, but I’m not asking you for forever. I don’t need you to promise me the rest of your life right now. Can we just start with the next ten minutes? Maybe even the next twenty-four hours?”

A few of the tears she’d been holding back slipped free, tracing their way down her cheek until Gendry swiped them away with his thumb. 

“Twenty-four hours,” she repeated. “I can do that.”

Gendry let himself smile the slightest bit. “I know you need to do things on your own time, and I can respect that, but I do need to make one request.”

“Hmm?”

“No more hiding. Please? I can’t do it again.”

  
  
“I don’t think we have a choice,” she said with a watery laugh. “Half my fucking family knows we’re together.”

“Are we? Together, I mean.”

“For at least the next twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes,” she confirmed. 

_ Good _ , Gendry thought. Then he kissed her with everything he had. 

God, how had he ever stopped doing this? How had he ever let her go? It didn’t matter. He was going to hold onto her now, twenty-four hours at a time. He was going to remind her every day that she didn’t have to run. 

Arya’s hands were on his arms after only a moment, gently anchoring her to him as their lips met. This, he knew, was the most right thing on the planet. The universe would not design two people who fit so perfectly together only to keep them apart. No, he refused to believe that.

What’s more, he refused to let it happen. 

Their kiss grew more urgent as Gendry backed her up against his bedroom door, letting his hands travel down her shoulders to explore her skin again. It had been three weeks since he’d had her last, but it felt like a lifetime and a half. All he wanted was to drag her into his bed and show her exactly how much he had missed this.

Her hands slid up under his shirt and Gendry reached back to yank it over his head. 

“Have you been with anyone since… you know?” She looked almost shy, but Gendry knew it had less to do with the subject of sex and more to do with the ‘not a breakup’ they’d had.

He shook his head. “No, nobody. Have you?”

“No.”

It was a short and simple answer, but Gendry could tell there was more to the story. She must have read his suspicion on his face because she spoke up to elaborate again.

“There was a girl at this party the other week,” she admitted. “I was drunk and trying not to think about you and…”

Gendry felt his heart drop into his stomach. Logically, he had no right to be upset. But he’d never had his fair share of sense when it came to Arya.

“I couldn’t go through with it,” she finished, and Gendry felt instantly lighter. “My mind was telling me that I should, but my body… it just didn’t feel right.”

“Does this?” He gestured between them, heart racing as he awaited a response.

“Always.”

It was all the encouragement he needed to scoop her up and push the door open with his foot. Arya was laughing as she steadied herself by holding on to his shoulders and Gendry thought he could die happy if that was the last sound he ever heard. He could hardly concentrate enough to make his way far enough into the room to shut the door behind them. 

She was smiling when he laid her down on the bed, all traces of her previous tears gone. He got to work unbuttoning her shirt, kissing the skin that was revealed as he went. Arya’s hands buried themselves in his hair, holding on tight as he traveled lower and lower. He started on her jeans next, unbuttoning them, then dragging the zipper down slowly. 

He stopped there, waiting for her approval to continue. 

“Gendry, please.”

It was all he needed to hear. There was a flash of a memory from that first night as he hooked his fingers over the waistband of her jeans and dragged them down her legs. He’d been so dazed that night, not quite believing that any of it was real. 

Not this time.

She’d been sparring a lot, that much was clear from the bruises that dotted her thighs and shins. He kissed each sensitive patch of skin as he worked his way towards her center, starting from her ankles. He could almost feel her melting into the mattress. 

The first swipe of his tongue over her slit had her gasping. “Fuck, I forgot how good you are at this,” she murmered, almost like she didn’t think he’d hear her. 

With his male ego fully puffed up and preening, Gendry dove back in, lavishing attention on her clit until he could feel her wetness clinging to his beard. He pulled one hand away from where he had been gripping her thigh and slipped two fingers inside, curling them at the angle he knew would drive her mad. 

If her grip on his hair was any indication, she was close to falling apart. He held back a smirk and doubled his efforts, continuing his assault until a litany of curses came tumbling out of her mouth. 

“Fuck fuck fuck… Ah! Gendry! Fucking hell!”

Within moments her words had devolved into nonsense, and then she was coming hard. His face, his fingers, his beard - all of it was coated in her sweet essence. He gently withdrew his fingers when she was lying boneless with her legs hanging off the bed and her chest heaving. 

“You alright?” He asked as he sat back on his feet, leaning his face against the inside of her knee. She moaned something that sounded akin to affirmation, but didn’t make any move to sit up. Grinning, Gendry pressed a kiss to the top of her leg, then stood up to lean over her on the bed. 

Fuck every renaissance painting and Roman statue, this was the most beautiful image Gendry could think of. Arya, lying across his bed, flushed with arousal and naked from the waist down, flannel thrown open to expose her lacy bra and a hint of the flesh underneath. That was art.

“You’re keeping the beard, right?” 

He would need to trim it before he started looking like a grizzled pirate, but he wasn’t opposed to the idea. Especially not when Arya asked him while lying on her back, blissed out in his bed. Yeah, he figured the beard could stay for a while.

He brought his fingers up to his mouth and licked them clean as he nodded. “As you wish, m’lady.”

Arya rolled her eyes and sat up, shrugging her shirt off and tossing it to the floor. “You have too many clothes on, stupid,” she said, grabbing the waistband of his jeans and yanking him closer. 

Gendry tumbled forward, catching himself on his hands so he wouldn’t crush her beneath his weight. She got to work on his zipper while Gendry leaned down to kiss her neck. It took her a few tries to get his fly undone, but once she was able to work through her distraction she yanked his pants down and reached for his cock, stroking it from base to tip. 

“Fuck, Arya,” he groaned, burying his face in her neck.

“Get up here.”

He shucked his pants off the rest of the way while Arya discarded her bra and turned to lay with her head on the pillows. When he was fully naked, he crawled his way up her body, peppering kisses over her legs, her hips, her torso, her breasts, and any inch of skin he could reach until she was laughing beneath him. 

“Gendry,” she whined. “That tickles!”

“Oh it does?” He leaned down to kiss her throat, making sure his beard scratched against the sensitive skin of her neck as he did. 

She buried her hands in his hair, gently tugging his face towards her for a long kiss. 

“I’ve missed this,” she said, almost as if she were just admitting it to herself. 

He dropped another kiss to her shoulder and grinned. “Me too.”

“I’ve missed that too.”

He knit his eyebrows at her. 

“That smile,” she clarified.

He didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t know how to react to the tenderness in her eyes either, so he just lined his cock up and eased himself into her, making both of them moan. If he lived to be a hundred, Gendry knew he’d never feel anything as divine as Arya’s body coming together with his.

He kissed her long and hard as he began to move, her body almost as familiar to him as his own by now. He reached down for her hands and pinned them over her head as he quickened his pace, paying careful attention to the way that she responded. He knew he wouldn’t last forever, but he was going to make sure he got one more good orgasm out of her before he was done. 

He pulled his head back a bit when she whimpered at a particularly hard thrust, checking to make sure it was a sound of pleasure, not pain. She still had her eyes closed, hair fanned out across the pillow, kiss-stained lips parted as little breaths passed between them. She looked like heaven and sin and joy and his  _ future _ . 

And he loved her. 

It wasn’t a ‘maybe’ anymore. He was in love with Arya Stark. Full stop, end of discussion, no questions asked. He loved her.

“Arya I-”

Her eyes snapped open at the sound of his voice and she lifted herself up to cut him off with a kiss. 

When she pulled back she looked almost apologetic. “I know,” she whispered. “I know you do, but I can’t say it back yet and I… you deserve to hear it too. I just need some time, okay?”

He could accept that. He had said that he would let her do this at her own pace and this was part of that. Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t  _ show _ her. 

He leaned down to kiss her again, hitching her leg over his hip so every thrust would hit that spot that drove her crazy. 

Her breathing hitched for a moment, then her hands began grasping at his, looking for some sort of purchase. Her nipples were hard, scraping against his chest with every movement and Gendry knew it felt even better for her than it did for him. If the desperate little noises that were slipping through her lips were any indication, she was right there, just a breath away from falling over the edge of bliss. 

He pressed his lips behind the juncture of her ear, then started murmuring in a voice he saved just for her. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful like this. Did you miss having my cock inside you? I know I missed making you moan like that. God, you sound so sexy when you’re getting fucked.”

Dirty talk hadn’t been a strong suit of Gendry’s when they’d first started sleeping together but he’d let a particularly filthy thought slip past his lips one night and Arya had pretty much immediately orgasmed, so he had added it to his repertoire. He didn’t have to work very hard at it, just say what he was thinking and let his words do the rest. They certainly seemed to be working tonight. 

“Jesus, Gendry…” 

He could feel her tense as her inner walls gripped his cock tightly. It was like watching a glass teeter on the edge of a table. But Gendry didn’t want to stop it, he wanted to shove it over the edge and watch it shatter. 

“That’s it. Let go, Arya.”

He bottomed out inside of her once more and then she was coming hard. 

One of the many things he’d learned about Arya from their time together was that she had a little quirk. The more intense her orgasm, the quieter she was when it hit her. It was like her body could only expend so much effort at once and she had to choose where to channel it in the moment. 

She was nearly silent as she arched up beneath him, breath leaving her in a labored gasp as she narrowed her focus down to the pleasure they were sharing. 

Gendry could’ve sworn he even saw a stray tear slip free, but he couldn’t be sure because his focus and restraint were both running out. The feeling of Arya’s climax was only driving him closer to his own and it only took a few more moments for him to follow her over the edge. White light exploded in his field of vision as he emptied himself into her with a groan.

He had just enough presence of mind to roll to the side when his arms gave out, instead of smushing her beneath his much larger frame. For a minute they simply laid next to each other as they tried to catch their breath. 

“That was…” he started.

“Yeah,” Arya agreed. “Wow.”

And then she laughed. Honest to God, laughter from her belly.

Gendry rolled to his side to look at her. “Do I get to know what’s so funny?”

“Me,” she said. “I’m a fucking idiot.”

He reached out and dragged her closer, tucking her body into his like a puzzle piece. “Well, that makes two of us. I should’ve stayed that night. I shouldn’t have let you go without a fight.”

“No, I was being so stupid. I was so insecure already, and then Jon freaked out and I panicked… he was right though.”

“About what?”

  
  
“I’m happier when I’m with you.”

“I’m happier with you too.” 

Arya stretched, then burrowed in closer to him. “So, how much do you think Jon would freak out if I spent the night?”

“Do you want to find out?”

“Mmmm… I think I do.”

Gendry pressed a kiss to her temple. “You need to go pee,” he reminded her.

Arya buried her face in his shoulder, with a groan. “Five more minutes,” she whined. 

“You’re gonna get a UTI.”

“I don’t care, I’m tired.”

“You’ll care when I have to drag you to the campus health center for antibiotics.”

“I’ll be fine. Let me sleep.”

“Arya,” he tried again, adding a warning tone to his voice.

“It’s your fault,” she pouted. “You fucked all the motivation out of me.”

“I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t.

Arya turned her head just enough to glare up at him. “No you’re not.”

“Alright, you got me.”

She gave his shoulder a weak shove. If she wanted to, she could do some real damage. He was grateful that she was too blissed-out and exhausted to try.

“At least  _ try _ to deny it! God, you’re the worst boyfriend I’ve ever had.”

Gendry didn’t bother reminding her that he was technically the only boyfriend she’d ever had. “Oh, I’m your boyfriend now?”

“Consider it a probationary period,” she said, voice laced with notes of mirth. “Impress me and the job is yours.”

The job…

_ Stormbreaker! _

Gendry nearly bolted straight up in the bed, jostling Arya and making her grumble.

“This is not boyfriend-worthy behavior.”

“Sorry, darling.” He gave her a quick kiss, then started blindly grabbing for his clothes over the side of the bed.

When he’d managed to grab his boxers, he detangled himself from her and slipped into them as he made his way to the computer desk at the end of the bed. His phone was still sitting next to the keyboard and he immediately picked it up and began furiously typing away. 

“At the risk of stating the obvious, there’s a very naked woman in your bed right now,” Arya reminded him. “What exactly is more exciting than that?”   


  
“Sorry, I’ll be there in just a minute. I’m just trying to get coverage for this shift I have on Friday.”

“So you can spend more time with me?”

He gave her a guilty smile. “Actually, it’s so I can drive into the city for an interview at Stormbreaker.”

“They asked to interview you? Gendry that’s amazing!”

“I still don’t quite believe it,” he admitted, placing his phone on the charger and crawling back into bed with her. 

“You’re gonna get it,” she insisted. “And I’m gonna do whatever I can to help.”

  
  
He grinned over at her, blue eyes meeting grey in the dim light that seeped through the blinds. “You know, you’re a really good girlfriend.”

Arya shrugged, trying to act calm and collected. “I try.”

“And I appreciate it.”

  
  
She grinned and cuddled in close to him. “No problem.”   
  


“And Arya?”

“Hmm?”

“You still need to go pee.”

She grumbled, but finally got out of bed and padded across the carpet, disappearing out his bedroom door.

When she returned she was wearing his discarded t-shirt and Gendry was pretty sure he’d never seen anything more beautiful.

“Happy now?” She made a point of crawling over him to get to her preferred side of the bed, then made herself comfortable.

  
  
Gendry pulled her close again, still not quite able to believe how this day had turned out but grateful all the same. 

“More than you could possibly know. Goodnight.”

She mumbled the same to him and rested her head on his chest. Gendry had a feeling it would be the best sleep he’d had in weeks, and he wasn’t wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So? Am I forgiven?


	11. This is Why I Need You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time flies when you're having... fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys, we are covering a LOT of ground in this chapter! Fasten your seatbelts!
> 
> Lyrics and chapter title by Jesse Ruben.

_ _

_ I have too many questions and places to go _

_ There are too many options far too many unknowns _

_ This is why I need you _

_ …  _ _ you make the darkness less dark _

_ You make the edges less sharp _

_ You make the winter feel warmer _

_ You make my weakness less weak _

_ You make the bottom less deep _

_ You make the waiting feel shorter _

_ You make my crazy feel normal, every time _

_ You are the who, love is the what and this is the why _

  
  
  


“Which one?” Gendry held two shirts up, one black and one white. 

Arya considered them from her place on his bed. She was naked, save for a pair of black panties and one of his old t-shirts, lounging on her side like she owned the place while he packed. She was terribly distracting, but he couldn’t complain.

They had the apartment to themselves this morning, thanks to the unspoken agreement that he and Jon seemed to have come to. It was no secret that Gendry’s relationship with Arya was still a bit uncomfortable for her brother, but he had come to respect the fact that they were both adults. He had also offered Gendry a sheepish apology for constantly banishing him from the apartment through sheer discomfort, and thus the unspoken agreement was born. Gendry spent a few nights a week at Arya’s, Jon spent a few nights a week at Ygritte’s, and they made a point of letting one another know their plans in order to avoid any uncomfortable run-ins.

“The white one,” Arya decided, “with your black slacks.”

He nodded, then turned back to the closet in search of his ties. He only had a handful, but he hoped the right one would help him make a good impression at his interview the next day. His whole future could change if this went right, and he wanted it to go right so badly.

Arya got off the bed with a grace that Gendry would never possess and sauntered over to where he was standing, holding a couple of ties in each hand and comparing the merits of each one. 

“I have to go get ready for class,” she grumbled, pressing her forehead into the space between his shoulder blades. 

He waited for her to lift her head so he could turn around and steal a quick kiss. “Let me know if you need anything.”

She gave a little hum in the affirmative, then grabbed a towel out of the dresser. “You should wear the blue one,” she said as she headed for the door. 

Of course she would pick that one. “Your dad gave me that one,” he informed her with a grin.

Arya shrugged. “The man knows a good tie when he sees it.”

Gendry took her advice and packed the royal blue tie, setting the others back in their place in the closet. 

He was scheduled for an interview with Mr. Penrose at 3:00 the next day, exactly one week from the day that he had gotten his email. Arya had been thrilled for him, immediately hatching a plan to help him nail the interview. 

Theon was out of town for the week, but had offered up his apartment. The two of them were going to drive out to the city as soon as they were finished with classes and spend the night. His place was only a few subway stops from Stormbreaker’s building, saving Gendry the worry of driving in the congested streets and trying to find parking. Afterwards they would have the weekend to themselves, though Gendry didn’t really care what they did, so long as they did it together. 

  
  


They took Arya’s jeep, but Gendry insisted on driving at least part of the way there. She let him cover the first leg of the trip, then took over when they stopped for food and gas. It was getting late as they crawled ever closer to their destination, so he kept Arya alert by playfully arguing with her about who got to pick the music and dispensing skittles into her mouth at regular intervals.

By the time they arrived, both of them were exhausted and ready to fall into bed for several hours.

Gendry held their bags while Arya approached the concierge.

“How can I help you, miss?”

Arya grinned at the man behind the desk. “I’m supposed to pick up a key,” she explained. “I’m a guest of Theon Greyjoy’s.”

“I see. I’ll just need to scan in a photo ID from each of you. Driver’s licenses are preferred, but a passport or school ID will work too.”

They handed over their respective licenses and waited as he scanned them to his computer, then handed them back alongside a set of keys and a pair of white cards.

“These are the keys to Mr. Greyjoy’s apartment,” he said, indicating the metal keys on the ring. “And he also had us program key cards for both of you. These will allow you access to the elevators, and all of our in-house facilities. If there’s any way I can be of further help to you, don’t hesitate to ask.”

They thanked the concierge, then headed for the elevator. 

Gendry leaned against the wall as they ascended and Arya pressed herself against him, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I’m so tired,” she grumbled.

He hummed in agreement, eyes already drooping shut. 

When they were finally inside Theon’s loft, they didn’t bother turning on the lights, just used the streetlights filtering through the massive windows to navigate the unfamiliar layout. Arya took the time to hang his clothes for the next day in the closet of the guest room they were staying in, a small act that made his heart swell, then shimmied out of her jeans and crawled into the unfamiliar bed. Gendry followed her lead, stripping down to his boxers and lying down with her. 

They barely had time for a quick kiss before both of them were fast asleep.

  
  


He woke to sunlight peeking through the edge of the curtain and Arya’s familiar weight pressed against his side. 

“Hey sleepyhead,” she teased. 

Gendry grinned and pulled her closer. “What time is it?”

“About ten thirty. Are you hungry?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

“No. Which is why I already ordered us breakfast from my favorite diner.”

Gendry smiled at that, then pushed his weight so he was hovering over her and peppered kisses all over her face. “I don’t deserve you.”

Arya rolled her eyes, but couldn’t hide her grin. “You’re such a sap.”

He couldn’t deny it, so Gendry just kissed her lips until he felt her melt into the mattress. “How long until the food gets here?”

“Long enough…”

* * *

“You’ve got everything?”

Gendry double checked his pockets, then the contents of the folder in his hand. “Yup. I think I’m ready.”

Arya smoothed his tie again and Gendry could almost swear that she was as nervous as him. “You know how to get to the subway station from here?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, and you remember the address?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Do you need a snack before you leave?”

“Arya, I’m fine. Just wish me good luck, okay?”

“You don’t need it,” she said, finally pausing her fidgeting hands for a moment.

“Can you say it anyway?”

She leaned up to kiss him, though it was little more than a peck. “Good luck. Now, go show those bigwig engineering guys what you’ve got,” she said, turning him towards the door and swatting at his butt. 

He smiled the entire elevator ride down to the lobby, and the whole subway ride too. Just as he had planned, he arrived fifteen minutes before his interview was scheduled and checked in with the young lady at the reception desk. She told him that Mr. Penrose would be available soon and had him wait in one of the large chairs nearby. 

He tried to sit up straight, not wanting to crumple the shirt that Arya had so carefully kept wrinkle-free for him. It felt wrong to start looking through his phone, so he simply observed the space around him. The place was modern, with lots of frosted glass that offered a bit of privacy without blocking the light from outdoors. People milled about with varying degrees of urgency, carrying tablets and coffee cups as they filed into a meeting room, or striking up conversations with coworkers.

“Gendry?”

The sound of his name pulled him out of his reverie and Gendry whipped his head around to search for the source. 

An older man with thinning blond hair stood behind him, holding open the door to a large office. 

“That’s me,” he said, rising from the chair. “You must be Mr. Penrose.”

“Oh, everyone just calls me Marty,” the older man said, shaking Gendry’s hand. “Come have a seat.”

* * *

There was no immediate sign of Arya when he got back to the apartment.

Gendry eased the door shut behind him and looked out over the edge of the loft onto the main floor, expecting to see her there, but finding nothing.

_ Where is she? _

His question was answered when he made his way down the stairs and towards the spare bedroom they were staying in, and Arya’s voice came filtering out of the bathroom. 

“I fucked it up again,” she grumbled. The words were followed by the sound of her rummaging around for something, then another voice spoke.

“It’s fine,” the other person said, and Gendry realized she was talking to someone on speaker phone. “Just blend it out.”

“Arya?” He tapped a knuckle on the door, then waited for a response. 

The door swung open to reveal Arya in a black dress, holding a makeup brush in her hand. “You’re back!”

“I am,” he said, grinning at the excitement on her face.

“Well? How did it go?”

He poked his head into the bathroom, seeking out her phone, and found it sitting on the counter. It was propped up against the wall, displaying Sansa’s face as Arya’s facetime call carried on. He shot her a questioning glance. 

“She knows,” Arya said, answering his unasked question.

“Hi Gendry,” Sansa sing-songed from the screen. “Should I call back later?” 

“I’ll text you tonight,” Arya said, then hung up. 

“You’re awfully dressed up,” he noted, fingering the hem of her dress. It was a heavy, shiny material. Velvet maybe? “What’s the occasion?”

“A celebration, I hope. How did it go?”

He let her wait with baited breath for a moment before putting her out of her misery. “I got it!”

“You did?” Arya’s voice was so high, she hardly sounded like herself. 

He nodded, letting the grin he’d been holding back break through. “I did.” 

He had only a moment’s notice before Arya threw herself into his arms and kissed him. 

“I’m so happy for you,” she said, leaning her back against the doorframe while her hands rested against his chest. He reached up to trap them there and looked her over.

The dress was nice, hugging her body in a way that was enticing but not obscene. The hem fell just above her knee and it had long sleeves that hugged her wrists, but the top of it was cut horizontally across her chest, leaving her shoulders and neck exposed. He wanted to kiss her there, lay his lips on every inch of exposed skin.

“Thank you. Now, are you going to tell me why you’re all dressed up? I’m almost certain this wasn’t in your bag.”

“I may have done a teeny bit of shopping while you were out.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “My dad got wind that we’re in the city, and now he wants to take us out for dinner with Robb. Do you mind going? It could be a good time to tell them we’re dating.”

“Do I get to take this off of you afterward?”

She glanced down to where his fingers were skimming her sleeve, then back up at him through her lashes. “If you behave.”   
  
“Me? You’re the one who always needs a spanking by the end of the night.”

“It’s not my fault I can’t act like a lady.”

Gendry scoffed. “Even if you could, you wouldn’t.”

Arya just shrugged. “True.”

He understood why Arya felt the need to pick up a new dress when they walked into the restaurant. It was a classy place with low lighting and waiters in back vests gliding between the tables. Arya had told him to keep on his interview clothes as she finished her makeup and dug a delicate choker out of her bag, but Gendry wished he had a sport coat or something. As the hostess led them towards the table that Mr. Stark had reserved, he realized all the other men in the restaurant had their outermost garments slung across the backs of their chairs anyway, so maybe nobody would notice.

“Your mom’s not coming, is she?”

Ayra shot him a glance over the top of the dessert menu she’d been idly skimming. “No, she’s at some NHS thing with Bran. Why? Are you scared of her or something?”

“Of course not. I just… If anyone in your family is going to disapprove of us dating, it’s her.”

“Why would she have a problem with it?”

“Well, I’m a few years older than you,” he started. “And I don’t have much money. I’m not Catholic and I don’t know anything about all the high-society stuff she’s into…”

Arya cut him off with a laugh. “That makes two of us. None of that stuff matters anymore. I mean, maybe like a hundred years ago, but not now.”

“Just because it doesn’t matter to you doesn’t mean it won’t matter to her,” he reminded her. “Your mom is kinda old-fashioned.”

Arya looked like she was about to give one of her typical scathing responses, but she never got the chance. A voice behind them cut through the background noises of the restaurant and drew their attention away from one another.

“Somebody call the FBI, my sister’s been bodysnatched,” Robb teased, making his way towards them. 

Arya rolled her eyes, but stood up to greet him anyway. “Good to see you too, jerk.”

The redhead pulled his sister in for a hug. “Seriously, who are you and what have you done with Arya?”

“I’m not allowed to look nice?”

Robb put his hands up in surrender. “Alright, fair enough. It’s just going to take some getting used to.”

_ That’s not the only thing _ , Gendry thought to himself as he shook Robb’s hand. 

The three of them sat back down to wait for Ned and Gendry tried to ignore the anxious twisting of his stomach.

“I’m surprised you didn’t come down with Jon,” Robb said, perusing the wine list.

Arya barely glanced at her brother when she spoke. “Well, he’s not dating Jon, so…”

That stopped Robb in his tracks. “Are you implying that he  _ is _ dating  _ you _ ?”

“More like allowing you to infer, but yeah.”

Robb sputtered for a moment, which Gendry almost found funny. “So… you two are… I’m so confused. How long has this been going on?”

Arya shrugged, her bare shoulders rising above the top of her dress. “A couple months. We didn’t really put a label on it until recently.”

Robb blinked a few times, as if that would help him process this information.

“Sorry I’m late, just had a few things that needed to be looked at before the weekend.”

Gendry snapped his head around to see Ned Stark striding towards them. 

“Did you know they were dating? Arya just told me,” Robb said, hardly letting his father greet the rest of the table.

“I was aware that their relationship had… shifted.”

Despite Robb’s surprise, dinner was not nearly as awkward as Gendry had feared it would be. Ned ordered a bottle of champagne for the table when Gendry announced that he’d gotten the position at Stormbreaker, and even poured Arya a glass to toast with. Gendry met her eyes as they clinked their glasses together and found so much pride and affection there that he had to resist the urge to lean over and kiss her.

When dinner had finished and they had all regretfully turned down dessert, the four of them decided to take a stroll together, saying goodbye to Robb when they reached the subway station. Gendry had really been enjoying his company, talking about his MBA program and living in the city, but he needed to get home to take Greywind out.

The rest of them carried on, meandering back towards Ned’s office building in order to pick up his car. He was asking Gendry about the contract he hoped to receive by working at Stormbreaker when Arya spotted something on the corner and gasped, face lighting up in excitement, then falling in disappointment as she patted the spot on her dress where her pockets would usually be. 

“Daddy…”

She didn’t even need to finish her sentence. Ned was already pulling out his wallet and handing her a few bills from inside. “Buy us a round, would you?”

“Thank you!” She kissed her father’s cheek, then darted down the street to where the vendor’s cart was stationed. 

Ned chuckled to himself as they watched her go. “She can never turn down those fruit pops. When we lived in Los Angeles she would pass three or four of those carts until she found one with-”

“Mango,” Gendry finished, “with chunks of fruit in it.”

Mr. Stark nodded as the two of them watched Arya talk excitedly with the vendor.

“My daughter told me something rather concerning the other week, but I’m starting to wonder if it wasn’t entirely true.”

“Sorry?” Gendry wasn’t sure if he’d understood.

“How long have you loved her?”

Gendry felt like he had just been punched in the throat. “Sir?”

“How long?”

He should have denied it. That was the logical thing to do, wasn’t it? But when he looked at Arya’s father’s face, he knew he couldn’t.

“God, I’m not even sure. Longer than I probably even realize, if I’m honest. It sort of snuck up on me.”

Gendry followed Ned’s gaze to the place where Arya was still talking to the vendor, saying something to make the older man laugh.

“She’s my whole world,” he said, only a hint of sadness laced in his voice.

“I know the feeling,” Gendry admitted.

“Be good to her, Gendry. She has an awful lot of brothers.”

He didn’t have time to formulate a response because Arya was scurrying back to them with three popsicles in her hands and a big childlike grin on her face. 

“Coconut for you,” she said, handing her father one. “And a Strawberry for you.”   
  


Gendry took the offered popsicle with thanks and the three of them rounded the corner to complete the final leg of their journey back to Ned’s waiting vehicle. 

* * *

“I got you something.”

Gendry had been half asleep, still coming down from the high she always left him with, when she spoke. Arya was laid out next to him, naked and relaxed, like a cat lounging in the sun.

“You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“But it’s your birthday.”

April had flown by in a haze of school, sex, and hours spent at the body shop. Now Gendry found himself in the early days of May with graduation and the beginning of his apprenticeship looming. Despite how crazy everything had been over the past month, it felt like all the pieces were slowly coming together. 

Arya had gotten an internship at a publishing company in the city, which she was actually quite excited about, despite it only being tangentially related to her degree and career goals. Theon had done some legal magic and gotten them temporarily added to his lease for the summer, which meant that they had an amazing place to stay for the duration of their time there and he had someone to look after his apartment while he was gone for days or weeks at a time. Gendry’s eyes had nearly popped out of his head when he caught a glimpse of the rent statement, but Theon said he would only charge whatever their stipends were. 

He had been incredibly relaxed about the idea of them sharing his place in his absence, but Gendry tried not to look the gift horse in the mouth. Truth be told, he was more nervous about living with Arya full-time for ten weeks. He had kept his secret promise to continually remind her that she didn’t need to run from him, but sometimes that required space. 

They kept to their usual Friday night routines and slept over at one another’s places throughout the week, but she still needed a lot of time with her friends. She needed her MMA club meetings, girls’ nights with Ygritte, and parties with Lommy to feel like herself, and Gendry didn’t mind. He had always known that she was an extrovert, and he didn’t mind waiting around at her apartment until she came stumbling through the door with tequila on her breath. 

Living together meant less space though, and he was determined to help their relationship survive it.

Still, that was a month or so away. He still had graduation and his birthday to think about before then. Which brought him back to the present moment.

“My birthday isn’t for two more weeks,” Gendry reminded her. 

“I know, but I really want to give it to you now.”

Part of him knew it was futile to argue with her and another part was just plain curious. “Alright. What is it?”

She rolled onto her side and started rifling through her bedside table drawer, eventually pulling out an envelope. She placed it in his hand and waited for him to open it, watching expectantly as he tore it open. It took him a moment to fully understand what had fallen out into his palm.

“Arya, are these plane tickets?”

“You got me tickets for my birthday, so I got you tickets for yours.”

“This isn’t really the same thing, Arya.”

She snuggled in closer to him, fixing him with one of those wide-eyed looks that always melted away his resolve. “I know, but Shireen was saying that you weren’t going to go home this summer because you wanted to save money for grad school, which is ridiculous, by the way. I know you’re going to get an offer from Stormbreaker.”

“Okay, back up a minute. When did you even talk to Shireen?”

“We text,” Arya said casually.

“Where did you get her number?”

“She sent me a DM on Twitter.”

“You follow my sister on Twitter?”

“Yeah, she’s hilarious.”

Gendry tried to formulate a response but Arya pressed on.

“Anyway, she was saying that you weren't planning on going home this summer, even though you have a break between work and school. So, I thought maybe you would want to go?”

She let the unspoken ‘together’ hang in the air. Still, it was pretty obvious given the fact that there were two tickets in his hand that she intended to join him. He wanted her to come with him too. Still, he couldn’t help but worry that she would be sick of him by the time the trip rolled around.

_ You’re being paranoid _ , he reminded himself.

“Davos and Marya are going to make you sleep in Shireen’s room.”

Arya just shrugged. “I don’t mind. I’ve been dying to pick her brain about the relationship between literature and activism anyway. There are just some conversations you can’t have over text.”

“You two are going to take over the fucking world, aren’t you?”

“Probably, but I promise we’ll be just and merciful rulers,” she said sweetly.

_ I love you _ , he thought, hoping she could somehow hear it.

* * *

It was stupid, but Gendry felt nervous as he and Arya stood waiting at the airport. This was his family. He had nothing to be nervous about, but he still found himself rubbing his palms against his jeans as he scanned the crowd. 

“Gendry!”

He turned towards the voice just in time to see Shireen streaking towards him. He just barely had time to brace himself for the impact.

“You’re getting too tall for this,” he groaned, letting her hang onto him like a koala. 

“All the more reason to do it while I can.”

He gave his foster sister a kiss on her cheek, just above her scarred skin. “I want you to meet someone.”

He set her down on the ground and Shireen was launching herself at Arya before he even had a chance to say her name. 

“You’re so tall,” Arya exclaimed, holding Shireen at arm’s length to examine her.

“You’re so small!”

“How was your flight?”

And just like that, the two of them were practically old friends. 

“There you are!”

Gendry turned to see Davos and Marya walking towards him, each holding a small suitcase. He hugged them each in turn, reveling in the feeling of having his little patchwork family back together again. He turned to where Arya and Shireen were still babbling away and held his hand out for Arya’s.

“Davos, Marya, this is my girlfriend, Arya Stark.”

“Well, aren’t you just lovely? I can’t thank you enough for looking after our boy,” Marya said, squishing Arya in a tight hug, much to Gendry’s amusement. 

“You haven’t had a recent head injury, have you? There’s got to be a good explanation for how someone like you ended up with this one,” Davos teased. Gendry knew his teasing was a good sign. It meant that he liked her so far. 

“No, no head injuries,” Arya assured him. 

“You  _ have _ to come visit us in California some time,” Shireen insisted. “It would be so much fun!”

“Well, Arya actually got me plane tickets for my birthday,” Gendry said. “We’re going to come visit for a week before school starts again.”

“Really? Oh my gosh, I have so much I want to show you,” Shireen said, directing her words at Arya. 

“You’d better be careful,” Davos said. “Shireen might steal her away from you.”

“I’m not above bribery,” he smirked, mind flashing back to the way Arya had moaned as she rode him that morning. “Let’s get you guys to your hotel.”

* * *

He woke on graduation day with Arya kissing his neck.

She had already been asleep when he’d gotten to her apartment the night before, so he’d let himself in with the spare key she had slipped into his pocket a few weeks ago and washed up before crawling into bed with her. Even in a dead sleep she had curled up against him.

They spent more nights together than apart these days, which was easing his nerves about living together over the summer. And he definitely wasn’t as nervous when he got to wake up like this. He tugged her closer, burying his face in her neck so that his beard scratched against the delicate skin over her throat. 

“Good morning,” she said through laughter. It was an honest-to-God giggle, something Gendry had never heard from her when other people were around. It was just one more part of her that only he got to know about and a stupid, possessive part of him relished in it.

“G’morning,” he mumbled, kissing his way towards her jaw. 

“Happy graduation day.”

He took a moment to enjoy the stillness of the moment. He wanted to commit it to memory before the chaos of the day began. The morning light made Arya’s eyes look like they were made of smooth flint, and it kissed her skin in such a way that she almost seemed to glow. Her hair was mussed up from sleep, shorter now than it had been a week ago thanks to a spontaneous trip to the salon. He wished that he could stop time. He wished he could hold this moment in his hand.

He trailed his fingers up her spine, watching her eyes flutter closed at the movement. “How long until we have to get up?”

“A couple minutes,” she sighed. “We’ve got brunch with Jon and Ygritte, then you’ve got to get ready for commencement.”

Gendry groaned and pulled her closer. “Your parents still want to do dinner afterwards?”

“Mhmm. Dad says they wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“They really didn’t have to come all the way out here,” he insisted.

“They’re proud of you. We all are.”

_ I love you _ , he thought, holding the thought away from his lips for the thousandth time. She needed to say it first and Gendry knew it. Still, it didn’t mean he couldn’t show her how he felt.

He moved his hand back up her spine and guided her lips to his, kissing her soundly as the seconds slipped by.

“You know, we could probably get ready faster if we showered together,” Arya said.

“How are you this sexy  _ and _ smart?”

  
  


* * *

In Gendry’s opinion, graduation ceremonies just didn’t live up to all the hype. In fact, as he sat in an uncomfortable metal chair, waiting for some random faculty member to finish off a seemingly endless speech, he began to develop a theory. The thought occurred to him that these ceremonies weren’t for the graduates at all, but for the people that had helped get them there. It was, essentially, a big fat parental pissing contest in which the winner was the person whose child walked across the stage with the most adornment stacked atop their plain black gown. 

If his theory was correct, Davos and Marya did not win. Not by a long shot. 

He hadn’t done poorly in school by any means. In fact, his grades had secured him a coveted spot in Cornell’s graduate program and helped him secure the position at Stormbreaker, but his extracurricular life had been rather lacking. If he could get pins and cords for the hours he had put in at the shop over the last five years, he might have been weighed down by them all, but the university didn’t offer that. 

He let his mind wander to a hypothetical place in the future. In his fantasy he and Arya are both sitting out in the crowd of students, waiting to receive their degrees - a bachelor’s for her and a master’s for him. She’s got cords hung over her shoulders and little trinkets denoting her dedication to the school paper and the MMA club. It was a pleasant little daydream, and he hoped that in two years it would be a reality. 

The speaker finally finished and Gendry joined the rest of the crowd in a round of lackluster applause. More faculty members approached the front of the stage and began arranging themselves to begin handing out the meaningless pieces of paper that were meant to stand in for their diplomas. He turned his head to the left, scanning the crowd for Arya and his family. He eventually spotted them, thanks to the bright yellow dress Shireen was wearing. Arya was sitting next to her, offering him a wave when she realized he was looking at her. 

Yeah, it was all pomp and circumstance, but he had to admit that he felt a bit of a thrill when he walked across that stage. He couldn’t help the swell of pride that surged within him as he and his classmates moved their tassels over the points of their silly hats. For five years he had worked day in and day out, and all of it had led him here. 

The only thing better than that was the way Shireen and Arya hugged him from either side after the ceremony was over.

Arya took photo after photo, then let Shireen take her beloved camera so she could pose for a few too. He waited for his little sister to start snapping in quick succession, then leaned down and kissed her without warning. The way she laughed as he pulled away almost made him forget the nagging pain in his chest that reminded him that the only person who had worked harder than him for this day wasn’t here to see it.

He remembered what Arya had said the night he’d told her about his tattoo. 

_ “I think she’d be really proud of you, you know.” _

With every fiber of his being, he hoped it was true.

* * *

  
  


Of all the things Gendry had prepared himself for, Shireen’s uncle had not been one of them.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Ned said as the four of them approached the table where he and Catelyn were already sitting with Renly Baratheon. “Renly happened to be in town on business.”

“Of course not.” It was rare that Shireen got to see her uncle, so he wouldn’t deny her this chance, unexpected as it was.

He had bigger fish to fry anyway. This was his first time seeing Arya’s mother since she had found out that they were dating. They’d been sprawled out amongst a mountain of final papers and projects on Arya’s rug a few weeks prior when Catelyn had called, demanding to know why her daughter hadn’t bothered to inform her that she was in a relationship. Apparently she’d caught wind of it from one of Arya’s brothers (Gendry suspected Rickon) and immediately snatched up her phone.

Needless to say, it wasn’t the best impression. As if he weren’t already nervous enough around her parents after his admission to Ned during their weekend in the city. He was determined to get on their good side, even if it killed him.

He made introductions where necessary, happy to see that Davos and Marya seemed to hit it off with Ned and Catelyn. Shireen was busy catching up with Renly, and Gendry was just trying not to ogle Arya in her skintight velvet dress when Jon and Ygritte arrived. As happy as he was to have his friends there, he couldn’t help but feel bad for Ygritte. She and Jon had been together for well over six months and he didn’t think Catelyn would take too kindly to the fact that yet another relationship had been kept from her. 

Still, dinner went far better than he could have anticipated. Catelyn did slide in a sour comment or two regarding Jon and Arya’s respective relationships, but the conversation was otherwise pleasant and plentiful. It wasn’t until the meal was over that Gendry got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

Jon and Ygritte had already excused themselves to take Ghost to the park before heading to Ygritte’s for the night, and Davos and Marya were leading Shireen out to their rental car when Renly placed a hand on his arm. 

“Ned and I were hoping to have a word with you in private,” he said.

Catelyn excused herself under the guise of sharing a promised recipe with Marya before they returned to their hotel. Arya rose too, but Gendry grabbed her hand before she could stand fully.

“Stay?”

She nodded silently and sat back down.

“Anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of her,” he said. 

Neither of the older men objected, which he took as a good sign. Renly reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a box about the size of Gendry’s palm, holding it out to him. “This is for you.”

Gendry didn’t have to open the box to know that the gift was excessive. “Oh, I couldn’t…”

“I insist,” Renly said firmly, offering the box again.

Gendry gently took it from him, opening the lid to reveal an elegant watch that probably cost more than what he paid in rent all year. It was a classic silver piece with a round face and what looked like diamond accents. He felt guilty just holding the thing. How was he ever supposed to wear it?

“I can’t accept this,” he said, closing the box again. “Thank you, really, but this is too much.”

Renly was already shaking his head when Gendry tried to hand it back. “It’s yours. Robert would have wanted you to have it.”

Gendry furrowed his brows as he tried to place the name. In the end Arya sorted it for him.

“Your brother? Why?”

That was it! Robert Baratheon had been Shireen’s other uncle. 

He would have become her legal guardian if he hadn’t drunk himself to death two months before Stannis was arrested for a laundry list of white-collar crimes and his wife was sentenced to prison time for child neglect. Davos had tried to shield both of them from the media coverage, but Gendry had been old enough to understand the implications of what he caught on the tv. Yellow Stag Cybersecurity had been one of the biggest in the country at the time and Stannis had practically imploded it with his actions. When all was said and done, Renly, who had only been twenty at the time, had inherited both of his brothers’ companies and become one of the youngest billionaires on the planet before he had even finished his bachelor’s degree.

From what Gendry remembered he had sold Robert’s brewing company, Black Stag Brewing, and focused his efforts on finishing school, bringing the cybersecurity company back from the brink, and convincing the state of California that he wasn’t fit to be Shireen’s legal guardian. 

And now here he was trying to give Gendry his dead brother’s very expensive watch…

Renly and Ned exchanged a glance and Renly took a deep breath. “Because you’re his son.”

And just like that, Gendry’s perfect day was turned on its head as the ground beneath him seemed to fall away from his feet. 

“ _ What? _ ”

“Well, we’ll need a DNA test to be certain, but I’ve got the best private investigators in the country working on this.”

Gendry blinked, as if he would open his eyes and find that the whole thing was an elaborate hallucination. 

Nope, still real.

“That can’t be possible,” he said firmly.

“You’re Gendry James Waters, born May 17th, 1994 in Los Angeles? Your mother was Faye Leanne Waters? You grew up in a blue house on Vine Street in the San Fernando Valley?”

Gendry’s blood ran cold. “No… I mean, yes. But that doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means quite a lot actually,” Ned said. “I know this is a lot to take in, and I'm sure you have a lot of questions.”

He let out a humorless laugh. “A few.”

His head was spinning and the only thing keeping him grounded was the feeling of Arya’s hand in his. She gave his fingers a gentle squeeze, their signal for ‘I’m here if you need an escape route.’

“Wait, so if Robert Baratheon is my father, then that means Shireen is actually…”

“Your cousin,” Renly provided. “Biologically speaking.”

“No wonder everyone always said we looked alike.”

“If Robert was Gendry’s father, why did you wait until now to find him? Robert lived in LA, it’s not like it would have been hard for him to track Gendry down,” Arya said.

“Let’s just say my brother had a knack for leaving his messes for others to clean up. What exactly did your mother tell you about him? You must have known something,” Renly said.

Gendry shook his head a bit. “All she ever told me was that he was gone and he wasn’t coming back. At a certain point I just assumed he was dead. It always made her upset to talk about it, so I just stopped asking.”

“I’ll be honest,” Ned said, “Robert was my friend, but he didn’t always choose the most honorable path in life. In death however, he did provide for his children. The only problem is that he didn’t give us a whole lot of information on those children. So, imagine my surprise when Jon came home with the spitting image of Robert at eighteen. I called Renly the first night I met you and had him start looking into your family.”

He hated it, but Gendry felt an absurd sense of betrayal at that admission. “So you never really cared about me at all, then? You just needed to keep me close in case I turned out to be your dead friend’s long lost kid?”

“Of course we care about you, Gendry. You’re practically family,” Arya’s father insisted. “I just didn’t want to bring this to you until we were sure. This is… a lot to wrap your head around.”   
  
“And you're sure now?” Arya asked.

Renly nodded. “Almost one hundred percent.”

Gendry felt like he needed to lie down and let the news wash over him in waves, then something occurred to him. “You said  _ all _ of us had to be of age? It’s not just me? I’ve got siblings?”

“Three of them,” Renly said. “The youngest, Edric, just turned eighteen.”

His inner distress must have shown on his face because Arya squeezed his hand again. “Are you okay?”

“I… I don’t know,” he admitted. “Everything I thought I knew about myself was a lie.”

In a matter of minutes he had gone from the only son of a single mother to one of four children born to a notoriously sleazy millionaire. His foster sister was his cousin… 

“Does Shireen know? Have you told her?”

“We thought you might want to be the one to tell her,” Ned said. “I know how close you two are.”

Renly reached down towards the ground and pulled a thick yellow envelope from his briefcase. “I brought this for you,” he said, placing it in front of Gendry.

He picked it up, a bit surprised that it didn’t immediately disintegrate. If this were really a bizarre dream, like he had been hoping, something like that surely would have happened. As it was, the envelope stayed exactly as it was, cold and heavy in his hand.

“What is it?”

“Legal information about your inheritance. You’re entitled to twenty percent of the profits from the sale of his company and twenty-five percent of the profits from the liquidation of his other assets. There are also files in there on each of your siblings. Names, pictures, contact information. Your sister, Mya, lives in Denver, but I believe she’s going to be in the city this summer.”

Gendry didn’t know what to say, just stared at the envelope in his hands. He knew, deep down in his gut, that its contents had the power to change his life. It made the papers feel all the heavier.

“What if I don’t want it?”

Renly gave him an odd look, as if he had just blurted something out in Portuguese instead of English. “Don’t want what?”

“The money. What if I don’t want it?”

“Why wouldn’t you want it? It’s rightfully yours, no strings attached.”

“Some people prefer to earn things, instead of just having them handed to them,” he said coolly, trying to quell his temper. 

Arya ran her thumb over his hand and Gendry could practically see the tension rolling off his shoulders and dissipating into the air. He looked over to where she sat and knew from the look on her face that she was ready to back him up, no matter what he said next. He was grateful when Mr. Stark cut in to help de-escalate the situation.

“I know that this is a lot to take in. Why don’t you just take the envelope home with you and look it over when you’re ready? There’s no need to make any sort of decision right now.”

Gendry knew an exit strategy when he saw one and he wasn’t going to let this one slip away from him.

He took a deep breath and nodded. “I’ll do that.”

All four of them stood and Renly offered Gendry his hand to shake. Apparently he hadn’t taken too much offense at his nephew’s dig. 

_ That’ll take a hell of a lot of getting used to. _

“I’m going to go say goodbye to Shireen,” he said once they’d shaken hands and he had gathered up his briefcase and the rejected gift.

Gendry turned to Ned as Renly walked out front. “Thank you for coming. It means a lot to me,” He said, grasping the older man’s hand firmly. 

“We wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

He and Arya said goodbye to their parents, though Gendry felt as if he were in a daze the whole time. Then, they drove back to his apartment with the stupid envelope in tow. Neither of them said a word the entire way back, though he knew that she was itching to ask if he was alright.

They both already knew the answer.

“Thank you,” he said once they were inside kicking their shoes off. “You didn’t have to stay for that.”

She surged forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding herself close to him. His hands sought out her waist instinctively, gliding over the soft fabric of her dress as he held her against his chest.

“I’m glad I stayed. That was… a lot.”

He hummed in agreement, taking comfort in her touch. 

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I thought he was dead for so long, and I was so  _ furious _ at him for leaving. Now I find out he was alive the whole time, less than an hour away, doing the exact same shit to other people.”

“It’s okay to be mad,” she said gently. “I always knew Robert was a piece of shit, but I had no idea it was this bad.”

He could feel the anger boiling up inside him once more, but he refused to let it ruin this day for him. He’d put five years of blood, sweat, and tears into this day and he wasn’t going to let a dead man take that from him. He let Arya go and led her into his bedroom. 

“I don’t want to think about this anymore today,” he said, tucking the yellow envelope into the top drawer of his dresser. “Distract me?”

She flashed him one of those feral smiles that he loved so much. 

“I can do that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, what did you think? I hope you guys enjoyed this extra long chapter! This story is going to be on a hiatus for a while as I will be traveling out of the country and unable to post. Posting will resume the first week of April, but you can check out my tumblr for next week's regularly scheduled preview, snippets of future chapters, and other related content in the meantime. Thanks in advance for your patience!


	12. Let Your Hair Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summer arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm back from my vacation early and posting ahead of schedule. We're going to return to posting on alternating weeks from here on out. Lyrics and chapter title by MAGIC!

_ To me you are more than just skin and bones. _

_ You are elegance and freedom and everything I know _

_ So come on and _

_ Baby let your hair down _

_ Let me run my fingers through it _

_ We can be ourselves now _

_ Go ahead, be foolish _

It wasn’t until a week after graduation that Gendry pulled the envelope out of the dresser and tossed it on Arya’s lap. 

She set her phone down and picked the envelope up, examining it critically. “Is this what I think it is?”

“I need you to open it.”

“Are you sure? This is pretty personal.”

He was nodding before she even finished speaking. “I can’t do it myself… but I need to know. Can you just look it over and tell me the important stuff?”

She glanced down at the envelope again, then slowly nodded. “Okay. Give me a few minutes and I’ll give you the cliffnotes when I’m done.”

He tried to distract himself by continuing to pack, but every time she rustled a page, his attention was drawn back to what was happening behind him.

Their lease didn’t end until August, but he and Jon were going to sublet the apartment while both of them were off doing their internships over the summer. Ygritte’s roommate had gotten engaged over spring break and decided to move in with her fiance as soon as possible, leaving her without a roommate for the fall. Jon had taken it as a sign that it was time to take their relationship to the next level and the two of them had found a one bedroom apartment a few blocks away with enough room for the two of them and Ghost.

Gendry had asked his landlord if there were any other units available in their current building, but all the studio options were spoken for and he didn’t like the idea of trying to swing the rent on a one bedroom unit if he didn’t get the funding from Stormbreaker. So, he had decided to stick with their current unit and look for a new roommate. 

Easier said than done.

Arya let out a long sigh from behind him and Gendry turned away from the clothes strewn across his floor. 

“Well, where do you want to start?” She motioned to the various stacks of paper in front of her.

“Can we just get the money talk out of the way?”

“Sure. Come sit with me?”

Gendry crawled up onto the bed with her, propping a pillow against the wall and leaning against it. Arya settled against him almost instinctively, resting her head on his shoulder as she thumbed through the papers.

“Between the payout from his estate and the money from Renly selling the company…”

“I don’t need to know a number,” he said. “Just give me a general idea?”

“Well, you definitely won’t need a roommate,” she chuckled. “Hell, you could buy a house if you wanted. Several houses, actually. Nice ones.”

It was tempting, of course, but he couldn’t help but wonder what good it did him now. Where was all this money when his mom couldn’t afford her treatments? Where was it when he was lying awake at night wondering how he would be able to afford his degree? Where was it when he wanted to go home for spring break but couldn’t afford the plane ticket?

What good did money do him now?

And what’s more, he hadn’t earned it. Sure, Robert probably hadn’t really busted his ass for it either, but it still felt more like a debt than a gift. Even though his father was dead, he felt as though there were unseen strings attached.

Arya must have sensed his inner turmoil because she reached out for his hand and held it between her own. “I know it doesn’t make up for everything he put you and your mom through, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do something good with what he left you. The money’s not going anywhere, right? Just think about it for a while.”

Gendry took a deep breath and tried to clear his head. “You’re right. Maybe I should sleep on it.”

“Okay, good. Did you want to know anything else?”   
  


“I don’t want to talk about the money anymore. Can you tell me about my siblings?”

She pressed a kiss to his cheek and reached for a different grouping of papers. “I would be delighted. Should we start with the oldest or youngest?”

“Oldest.”

“That would be Mya,” she said flipping through the papers in her hand until she found a picture of a girl with black hair that fell in waves to her shoulders. Her eyes were a familiar shade of blue and Gendry was almost unnerved by the similarities in their appearances. For some reason it made everything about the situation much more real.

“She’s a park ranger in Denver,” Arya told him. “Twenty-six years old, single, no other siblings, mom died when she was nineteen. It looks like Robert was actually there for her a bit when she was a kid, but he didn’t stick around for long. I guess things with her mom didn’t work out.”

She shuffled through the papers again and pulled out a new group. “Then there’s Bella.”

The girl in this picture had more delicate features, but the same blue eyes and black hair that hung in waves around her shoulders. She was definitely more of a “girly girl” than Mya. Her hair was carefully styled and her makeup was flawless, and she wore a pale blue dress that made her eyes stand out.

“She just turned twenty-four earlier this year. She lives in Minneapolis with her mom, goes to cosmetology school and waits tables at a sports bar. No siblings, but she’s close with her cousin. She never knew Robert, but she found out about him when she was in high school.”

“She’s twenty-four?”

Arya nodded. “About thirteen months older than you,” she said sadly.

Gendry couldn’t help but do the math in his head. That meant Bella was only four months old by the time Robert had moved on to Gendry’s mom.  _ The piece of shit…  _

“And then there’s your brother,” Arya said, reaching for the last stack of papers. 

She held the picture up for Gendry to see. The boy there had dark, tidy hair and the same blue eyes as the rest of them. “He just graduated from high school in Chicago. His mom comes from old money, I guess. They live in a nice suburb. His mom’s remarried and he’s got a couple of half brothers.”

“Sounds nice,” he said, unable to hide the twinge of jealousy in his voice.

Arya hummed in agreement. “I guess it does, doesn’t it? From what I can tell, he didn’t have much contact with Robert, but he did know about him.”

Gendry wound a tendril of her hair between his fingers, deep in thought. “Now I can’t decide which is worse: growing up knowing that he’s out there and doesn’t want you, or believing he’s dead for most of your life.”

Arya all but threw the papers in her hand down and crawled into his lap. “Look at me,” she said cradling his face in her hands. “Robert Baratheon was the world’s biggest idiot for not being in your life. You deserved to have a dad that loved you, and cared for you, and knew all the things that make you so wonderful, and I’m sorry that it wasn’t him. But you are brilliant and dedicated, and  _ good _ , Gendry Waters. You’re better than him in every possible way and I love you for it.”

He sucked in a breath as his heart skipped a beat. “What?”

She gave him a cheeky grin. “You heard me.”

“I still want to hear you say it again.”

She wound her arms around his neck and leaned in close, kissing him sweetly. “I love you,” she repeated, pulling away from him only just enough to be able to speak. 

He felt like he was floating, or maybe dreaming. It felt like he had waited forever to hear her say it, though it had really only been a matter of a few weeks. She loved him.

Of course, he had suspected as much. It was the fact that she was able to admit it that meant the world to him. Arya’s ‘I love you’ meant so much more. It meant that she trusted him, and that he really was different from the rest to her. 

“I love you too,” he said, just barely more than a whisper. 

She smiled at him somewhat sadly. “I know. I’m sorry I made you wait so long to say it.”

He settled his hands on her waist, brushing his thumbs along the bottom of her ribcage. “I don’t mind waiting for you,” he assured her. “Just as long as you come around eventually.”

She leaned forward and kissed him again, slow and sensual, running her hands along his jaw and making promises with the roll of her hips. “And what are you hoping I’ll come around to next, hmm?”

And then Gendry said perhaps the dumbest thing he possibly could have. “Move in with me?”

To which Arya said the most surprising thing she possibly could have. “Okay.”

“Wait, what?”

“I said okay, dummy. We spend all our free time together anyway, we might as well split our rent payments. Besides,we’ll be living together for most of the summer. It’ll probably be weird to sleep alone after that.”

Gendry couldn’t help the massive grin that spread across his face. “I do sleep better when you’re with me.”

“Even when I’m clingy?”

“Especially when you’re clingy,” he chuckled, punctuating the sentence with another kiss. “I’ll call my landlord on Monday and see what he has available for the fall. He owns a few properties that are pet friendly, so you could have Nymeria out here.”

Her grey eyes softened at that. She hadn’t been able to find a place that would allow her beloved pet the previous year, and she was honest enough to admit that she didn’t have the time to care for Nymeria between her classes and extracurriculars anyway. It would be possible between the two of them though. 

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“Of course not. I’m used to living with Ghost and it would make you happy, wouldn’t it?”

“You don’t have to bribe me, I already said I’d move in with you.”

“It’s not a bribe,” he chuckled. “I just want you to be happy. Isn’t that what you do for the people you love?”

Arya’s sassy grin softened as she traced his jaw with the tips of her fingers. “Yeah, it is.”

She leaned forward to kiss him again and Gendry wrapped his arms around her more fully, keeping her close as their lips collided. She let out a contented sigh as her hands travelled to his hair and Gendry thought that it sounded sweeter than all the pretty words on the planet.

“I love you,” he murmured, kissing his way down her neck.

He repeated it again and again as he laid her down on the mattress and shoved the papers off the bed without a care. He repeated it as he lifted her tank top over her head and tossed it over his shoulder. He repeated it between every kiss he pressed to her body as his lips ventured lower and his thumbs caressed the undersides of her perfect breasts.

And then he reached the waistband of her shorts and when he finally had them off he couldn’t say it any more because his mouth was busy. Instead he dragged his tongue through the moisture between her thighs and lapped away at her until  _ she _ was the one repeating it endlessly between every gasp and moan.

_ That’s it _ , he thought as he felt her legs tense up. He pulled a hand from the thigh it had been gripping and slipped two fingers into her without preamble. It didn’t take him more than a second to find that sweet spot inside of her and begin stimulating it in time with his tongue.

“Fuck!” Her fist closed tighter in his hair. “Ah! Gendry, I lo- oh! I love you…”

He could feel her flooding his fingers with moisture as she fluttered around him. She tasted divine, as always, covering his tongue in salty sweetness. He could live and die like this if not for the supreme discomfort of his erection staining against his jeans.

He pulled his shirt off and tossed it to the side before he continued kissing and biting at the insides of Arya’s thighs, content to watch her come down from her high for a moment. Maybe it was too early to tell, but he was pretty sure that he would never get tired of this. He was pretty sure he would ever get tired of  _ her _ .

“Take your pants off,” Arya panted, shoving her loose hair away from her face. 

Gendry didn’t have to be told twice. He shucked off his jeans, as well as the boxers underneath, and let them fall to the ground. Then he crawled onto the bed with her, letting Arya push him onto his back as she laughed at his enthusiasm. 

“Always so well-behaved,” she teased, throwing her leg over his hips as she said it.

He reached out to wrap an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. Arya caught herself with two hands flat against his chest, then leaned down to kiss him again. 

“Is that what you call it?” He didn’t give her time to respond before he tightened his grip on her waist and flipped her underneath him. Arya let out an indignant squeak, then a short laugh that disintegrated when he reached between them to guide the head of his cock to her entrance. 

For all the many adventurous ways they’d learned to make each other come, Gendry had to admit that he loved it just like this. Not just because it always made him think of that first night (though he was pretty sure the image of her face drenched in lamplight and ecstacy would be burned into his mind forever) but because he was pretty sure there was no greater turn-on than getting to watch Arya melt in pleasure as he entered her.

Her hands moved up to his shoulders and gripped there as he buried himself inside of her with a happy sigh. Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment before opening to meet his again. “Hi,” she breathed, a grin tugging at the edges of her lips.

Gendry lowered himself just enough to kiss the tip of her nose. “Hi yourself, beautiful.” 

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” she chided him. Even still, her legs moved to bracket his hips as she said it.

“Good, because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now.”

And with that, he began to move. It was torturously slow until the combined feelings of the intense physical pleasure and all-consuming adoration for the woman beneath him became too overwhelming for Gendry to exercise any sort of control. The kisses he had been peppering along her neck and lips grew sloppy, then stopped altogether when Arya’s thighs tightened around his hips and her back arched, driving him higher and higher on the seemingly endless spiral of bliss he’d been riding.

And then the dam broke and he found himself suspended somewhere between falling and flying as he buried his face in her neck and emptied himself deep inside her. 

Several minutes later they were lying in a tangle of limbs, sated and basking in the afterglow.

“Hey,” Arya whispered, and Gendry could feel her eyes on him despite the fact that his had drifted closed as he traced lazy patterns onto her bare back.

“Hmm?”

“I still love you,” she breathed.

“I still love you too.”

He was beginning to think that he always would. 

* * *

  
  


“Daddy’s home!” 

“For the last time, nobody is going to call you ‘daddy’ in this apartment, Theon.”

Despite her protests, Arya still set her laptop aside and got up to greet her foster brother. 

“Good to see you, Squirt.” Theon gave Arya a hug, then got his hand smacked when he tried to ruffle her carefully styled hair. Pouting, he turned his attention to Gendry. “Good to see you fully dressed.”

Gendry fought off the blush that threatened to color his cheeks. It wasn’t his fault that Theon had a bad habit of coming home from his trips unannounced. Arya had created a shared calendar for the three of them pretty quickly, though Theon liked to use it to create events such as ‘don’t fuck my little sister on my $6,000 couch you heathen’ and ‘maybe try using a gag tonight’ for Gendry’s calendar. 

Still, he wasn’t the worst as far as roommates went. He was gone when he and Arya got home from work most days, paid for a weekly maid service, and had only roped them into filming a video with him once (though Gendry remained firmly behind the camera while Theon and Arya took center stage). He hadn’t actually watched the video, but Arya said that her Twitter following had tripled in the week following its debut. 

“You two look way too nice for a night in,” Theon noted, eyes skating over the pair of them. “Date night?”

Arya shot him an uncertain glance, to which Gendry nodded. 

“Actually, we’re meeting someone for drinks tonight.”

“Well, if you’re going to have a threesome, can you please do it at their place? I have a video call at five AM.”

“Ew, it’s my sister,” Gendry said.

“The smart one, with the scar?”

“ _ Theon _ ,” Arya hissed. “Her name is Shireen.”

“It’s actually my half sister, Mya,” Gendry admitted. “It’s my first time meeting her.”

That seemed to finally shut him up. “Oh, I didn’t realize you had any siblings.”

“Yeah, well neither did I until about a month ago.”

Arya chose that moment to cut in. “So, how was London?”

Theon was more than happy to share his many adventures from across the pond until it was time for them to leave, for which Gendry was grateful.

* * *

“Are you nervous? I know this is a little intimidating,” Arya said as they boarded the subway. 

He was… unsettled, but nervous didn’t feel like quite the right word. It was more like curiosity, or the fear of the unknown. It was almost the same thing he had felt before his first day at Stormbreaker. 

“I’m alright.”

They had picked a bar near her hotel and agreed to meet at nine, causing Gendry to check his phone over and over as the subway rumbled towards their destination. They ended up being two minutes early. He found that it didn’t help the feeling in the pit of his stomach, so he tried to focus on finding a place to sit instead. 

There was a round table near the corner that had been left empty, so they settled in there and scanned the bar for any sign of Mya. 

“Do you think that’s her?”

Gendry followed Arya’s eyes to the side entrance where a young woman in a black and red flannel had just walked in. 

“Yeah, I think it is.” 

The woman, Mya, met his gaze and grinned.  _ Definitely her _ , he thought.

He could see her better as she approached, and he realized that the picture Renley had given him must have been old. Her face was more angular and her thick hair was cut above her jaw now. She was tall for a woman, around Sansa’s height if he had to guess, but not taller than him. 

“You must be Gendry.” 

He couldn’t explain it, but her voice suited her. Her smile did too, though it was somehow more of a smirk. He had been worried he wouldn’t feel it, but there was an instant familiarity towards her that he tried very hard not to be suspicious of. 

“Mya. It’s nice to finally meet you. This is my girlfriend, Arya.”

Arya shook Mya’s hand, then offered to grab them drinks from the bar. All three of them laughed when he and Mya both asked for whiskey at the same time.

“Well at least I know you’ve got good taste,” Mya said, settling into her chair. “In drinks  _ and _ women.”

“Thank you?”

Mya laughed at his uncertainty. “Is it just me,or does this feel like the world's weirdest blind date?”

“No, definitely not just you.”

Mya grinned at that and Gendry felt a bit less nervous. 

“Well,” she started, “I’m sure you’ve got questions for me. I know I’ve got a whole bunch for you.”

“I don’t know where to start,” he admitted. “How about something easy? What’s your favorite color?”

Mya laughed again, but humored him. “Orange, you?”

“Yellow, like a dandelion.”

“Alright, my turn. Favorite subject in school?”

“Math. Let me guess, yours was… history?”

“Science, but good guess.”

He glanced down at his hands, trying to build up the courage to ask his next question. “Did you know him? Robert, I mean. Were you ever close?”

Mya smiled sadly at that. “You never met him, did you?”

Gendry shook his head.

“He’s a hard person to explain,” Mya said. “He came around more when I was a kid. I could hate him for weeks, then he’d show up and make me feel like the only person in the world that mattered for a couple days and I’d forgive him for a while. I think he got sick of it as I got older. I was harder to impress every time he came to see me, so eventually he just started throwing money at the problem instead. 

“By the time my mom died, I hadn’t seen him for a decade. I’m pretty sure his assistant was the one sending checks on my birthday each year. When Renley told me about you, I can’t say I was especially surprised. Robert cared about what Robert cared about, and that was himself.”

Arya, whose timing was as perfect as ever, chose that moment to reappear with their drinks. Gendry was grateful that he didn’t have to come up with a response to what Mya had said, but he still didn’t know how long it would take to process it. Their experiences had been so different, but he still couldn’t decide which was worse. Maybe there was no ‘worse’ in this situation, just different types of awful.

Arya settled in as Gendry took a sip of his drink, more than happy to let her lead the conversation for a while. “You’re a park ranger, right? What’s that like?”

Mya set her own glass down and smiled at that. “It’s the best job in the world. Seriously, I know people say that all the time, but I really do mean it. I get to be outside every day, I’m not chained to some cubicle five days a week, and I get to spend more time with animals than people.”

“Now that’s a perk,” Arya laughed. 

“My supervisor is actually talking about getting me a dog.”

“Thank God Arya’s job doesn’t offer dogs as incentives. We’d be drowning in puppies,” Gendry teased.

“It’s not an incentive. The park rangers are responsible for all of the search and rescue missions in the park, which is a lot. He said that my volunteer work made me an ideal candidate for becoming a search and rescue dog handler.”

“Oh? What volunteer work do you do?”

“I lead trail rides on the weekends when the weather is nice. One of the stables near the park uses horsemanship to teach kids responsibility and get them outdoors. Trail rides in the park are a special treat for them. And it’s made me very good at navigating the terrain, handling animals, and leading large groups. Apparently all the necessary qualities of a search and rescue leader.”

“Wow,” Gendry said. “That’s amazing.”

“Enough about me,” Mya said, waving a dismissive hand at them. “What about you guys?”

Gendry found that talking to Mya came easily. She was impressed that he was going for his master’s degree (she had gotten a bachelor’s degree in ecology) and seemed genuinely interested in his internship. They talked about everything from school to sports as they sipped their drinks, and he could tell that Arya and Mya would be fast friends. Gendry even brought up his mom towards the end of the night, happy to find that Mya could relate to his experience to a degree since she had lost her own mother in a car accident during her college years. They offered one another brief condolences, but didn’t dwell on the heavy subject.

He finally decided that they should call it a night when he caught Mya trying to stifle a yawn behind her hand. He gave Arya his card and asked her to settle their tab, despite his sister’s protests. 

“I’m really glad I got to meet you,” she said after Arya had started making her way through the crowded establishment. 

“Me too.”

“You should call Bella sometime. She’d really like to get to know you. And I think you’ll like her, once she gets done teasing you.”

He’d held off on calling any of his other siblings, and avoided Renley’s calls for the past month. Now the idea of knowing his half siblings didn’t seem so daunting. Actually, it felt sort of comforting.

“And Edric?”

Mya ran a hand through her hair, a habit that he was amused to find that they shared. “He’s… a little more hesitant about all this. He’s already got a family, you know? It probably feels weird for him. I think he’s warming up to the idea of us, but it’s going to take time.”

Gendry nodded, taking the information to heart. 

“And Gendry? You should take the money. I know it probably feels like too little too late, but you deserve some security. It’s the least Robert could have done for you.”

“Thanks. I’ll take that into consideration.” 

Arya reappeared and handed him back his card, then hugged Mya tight. “It was so nice to meet you.”   
  
“You too. I honestly don’t want to go back to my hotel now. Any chance you two would be free for dinner tomorrow night? I want to make the most of this trip.”

“I’m sorry, but we already have plans,” Gendry said.

“We’re ditching out on my mother’s charity fundraiser, so I told her we’d have dinner with her and my dad to make up for it,” Arya explained. 

They did agree to meet for brunch on Sunday though, which brightened Mya’s mood. By the time they said goodbye, Gendry could honestly say that he felt like he had gained a friend, if not a sister over the past couple of hours.

* * *

He called Renley the next morning to sort out the last details of his inheritance, ideas swirling through his mind and mingling with Arya and Mya’s words.

* * *

Theon left for Los Angeles that afternoon, leaving the two of them to entertain themselves until it was time to get ready for dinner with Arya’s parents. They must have entertained themselves a little too well because they were almost late. Arya managed to drag him into the restaurant just a minute before they were meant to arrive.

“Arya, there you are!” Catelyn stood up from her chair as soon as she spotted them.

“Hi Mom. It’s good to see you,” Arya said, letting her mother draw her in for a hug.

“Gendry, you’re looking well,” Ned said, extending his hand.

Gendry took it without hesitation. “You as well, sir.”

“Come sit,” Catelyn said, motioning towards their chairs. “I’m interested to hear about this internship of yours.”

They ordered their drinks, then Gendry explained the apprenticeship program to them as well as he could. He told them about how the selection process was run, and that he could have his master’s degree paid for if he was chosen for a contract. 

“There are ten of us in the program, but they’re only going to offer five contracts when it’s over,” he said, then thanked the waitress that had just placed his drink in front of him.

There was a pause in the conversation as they ordered their food, and it was only then that he realized that he didn’t really  _ need _ the contract anymore. The money from Robert’s estate was more than enough to cover tuition and living expenses for the next two years. He tried to set that thought aside as quickly as it had come to him.

“Not that you have anything to worry about,” Arya cut in. “Gendry’s boss seems to be pretty fond of him.”   
  
“Well, if you’re as committed to this as you are to everything else you do, it’s no surprise,” Ned said, taking a sip of his iced tea. 

“Thank you, sir.”

  
  
“Speaking of commitment….”

“ _ Mother _ ,” Arya hissed.

Catelyn waved her off. “Enough, Arya. Since you apparently can’t be bothered to tell me anything about your life, I’ll do what I must to get the details.”   
  
“It’s alright,” Gendry said, placing a hand on Arya’s knee beneath the table. He would expect no less from her mother.

Catelyn shot her daughter a satisfied look. “See? It’s fine. Now, how serious is this? Do you plan to get married? When can I expect grandchildren? I hardly thought Arya would be the first of my children to make it down the aisle, but I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Mom, we've been together for less than six months,” Arya objected. “Could you chill out for like five minutes?”

“I was talking to Gendry.”

Gendry gave his girlfriend’s leg a squeeze, hoping it would reassure her. She slipped her hand into his and suddenly Catelyn Stark didn’t seem so intimidating anymore. 

“We’re taking things one day at a time,” he said. “Arya means the world to me, and I don’t want to rush into anything before we’re both ready.”

“Well I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that you’re not getting any younger,” she countered. “I’m certainly not.”   
  
Arya rolled her eyes at her mother’s theatrics.

“I understand that you just want to see your daughter happy,” Gendry said in an attempt to placate her. “ _ But _ , these are things we haven’t even discussed with each other yet. If we decide to get married, I want it to be a mutual decision. And if we decide that we want children, that will be something that happens in Arya's time. She’s got a big career ahead of her, and I don’t want her to feel like she has to put that on pause for anyone.” 

He let the ‘including you’ go unspoken.

“See Cat? They’re handling this all very maturely. Nothing to worry about,” Ned said. 

His wife looked like she had more to say, but bit her tongue as their waitress arrived with their meals.

“I got a call from Renley Baratheon today,” Ned said casually, cutting into his chicken. “He told me that you had finally come to a decision about your inheritance.”

“I have, sort of.”

Ned furrowed his brows. “What do you mean? Renley said that you had decided to take the money.”

“I have. I’m just not sure what I’m going to do with it.”

“Dad has a really great financial planner,” Arya said. “Maybe he could help.”   
  


“Yes, that would be wise. I’ll give you his business number,” Ned offered, reaching into his pocket for his phone. “Tell him I sent you and he’ll make sure you have an appointment within the week.”

“Thank you, that would actually help a lot.” Gendry said, then turned to Mrs Stark. “If it’s alright with you, I actually had a few questions.”

Catelyn looked surprised, but nodded for him to go ahead.

“Arya said that the Stark Foundation has a scholarship fund. I was going to ask you about it at the fundraiser, but since we can’t go…”

“Yes, of course. The scholarship program is only part of what the Stark foundation does, but it’s an important aspect of our charity work. The point is to offer need-based scholarships to students who have suffered traumatic brain injuries or paralysis.”   
  
“Like what happened to Bran,” Arya added.

“Exactly. Bran’s accident is what led me to start the Stark foundation. As he was going through his recovery, we met so many people in similar situations who didn’t have the same resources that we did. I wanted to find a way to get them those resources.”

Arya had told him once that the Stark Foundation was simply Catelyn’s cure for empty nester syndrome - something to take up her time as her children got older and needed her less and less. Gendry sort of understood. Motherhood had been Catelyn’s job for so long, he figured she probably needed a distraction as her kids became more independent. There were certainly worse things she could be doing with her time.

“I wanted to be able to do some good with the money that Robert left me,” Gendry explained. “I just don’t know where to start. I keep thinking about how going back to school changed my mom’s life, so I thought maybe a scholarship fund for single mothers would be nice. But like I said, I don’t know where to begin.”

It was almost like a light had switched on. Suddenly Arya’s mother was all too happy to explain the inner workings of a non-profit and all the details that went into running scholarship funds. She had advice on getting donors, hosting events, and finding employees. By the time the meal was over, Gendry felt like he’d gone through a complete college course on philanthropy and his head was sort of spinning. She had even told him to call or text her if he had more questions.

* * *

“I think you broke my mom,” Arya said as they walked home from the subway station. Her hand was held tightly in his and he was hesitant to let it go when it came time to fish the keys out of his pocket. “I don’t think I’ve seen her that enthusiastic since Robb got into business school.”   
  
“I think she likes to feel needed. And I could definitely use all the help I can get.”

She turned to face him as the elevator doors closed behind them. “I’m really proud of you, you know. A lot of people would have taken the money and fucked off to some island for the rest of their lives.”

“I mean, I’m not  _ opposed _ to islands,” he joked. “Just, in a much more short-term sense.”

Arya chuckled at that and leaned in to kiss him as the elevator opened up on their floor.

“I suppose we should talk about the other part of that conversation,” Arya said, notably avoiding his gaze as she kicked off her shoes. 

Gendry swallowed hard. “We should. Do you want to sit down?”

She nodded mutely and Gendry followed her downstairs into the living area, leaning against the back of the sofa so that he could look at her.

“I’m sorry about my mom. I know she can be… intense.”

“It’s alright. She may have been jumping the gun a bit, or a  _ lot _ , but I think maybe we should talk about some of the things she brought up. If that’s okay with you?”

Arya nodded again, but didn’t say anything. 

“Okay. I know that moving in together was a big step. Do you still feel okay about it?”

“Yeah, definitely. If anything, these past few weeks have made me even more excited to have our own place. I like coming home to you and making dinner together, and you never make me feel smothered.”

He felt a weight lift off his shoulders. He loved living with Arya, but he had worried that she felt trapped now that they were together every morning and night. Theon had warned him about tying her down all those months ago, and Gendry knew there was at least a half truth to his advice.

As a rule, he never guilt tripped her for going out without him. They had accepted when they were friends that she was an extrovert and he was an introvert, and they still respected that fact now that they were in a relationship. It certainly didn’t hurt that most of her nights out with Meera or her coworkers ended with her arriving back at the loft and crawling directly into his lap for a kiss. 

“I do too,” he said. “But, I promised you that we could take this one day at a time and I meant it when I said that I would wait for you to feel comfortable with taking big steps.”

“Like getting married?”

“Exactly. I don’t want you to feel like I’m waiting around for you to change your mind on things that you’ve already decided on, though. So, is that something you want? Not now, obviously, but someday.”

There was a long pause in which Arya seemed to mull that question over. He was grateful that she was giving it some real thought, but didn’t particularly enjoy the fact that he was getting more and more nervous with every passing second.

“I was never the kind of girl that daydreamed about her wedding,” she finally said, “but a wedding and a marriage aren’t the same thing. I’m not opposed to the idea of marriage, I just haven’t really considered it very much, you know?”

“So you’re a firm ‘maybe’ in the marriage department?”

She finally cracked a smile at that. “I… I don’t want to be tied down, but I think that with you I could have commitment  _ and  _ freedom. So, I guess I’m a ‘yes to Gendry and no to everyone else’ in the marriage department.”

“I’ll try not to get a big head about it,” he smirked. “I’m gonna be honest with you, I’m not in any rush to get engaged. I would want to wait until I’m at least done with school, if that’s alright with you.”

“Actually, I’d prefer it if we were both done with school. I don’t want a giant wedding or anything, so it’s kind of an arbitrary rule, but I… I guess I just won’t feel like a real adult until I’m done with my master’s degree and working.”

“That’s fair. Like I said, I’m not in any rush.”

He was feeling much more relaxed until Arya took his hand and spoke again.

“What about the kids thing?”

He squeezed her hand automatically. “Look, what I said earlier, that was just to appease your mom. If you still don’t want kids, I’m fine with that.”

“Who said I don’t want kids?”

He was about to say ‘you did’ when he realized that it wasn’t necessarily true. He’d assumed it based on things Jon had said, and he remembered her saying she didn’t know if she could give him kids when they had argued, but at no point had she actually said ‘I don’t want kids’ to him.

“I thought… I don’t know, I just figured you didn’t really care for them.”

Arya gave him an odd look. “I love kids. I used to volunteer in the nursery at church every week. It was the best part of my day.”

“So you  _ do _ want kids?”

“With you I might. I want to establish my career first, but I’m open to the idea, as long as I get to do it my way.”

“So you  _ might _ want kids?”

“Someday, yeah. Is that okay with you? It’s kind of a big deal, so I’d rather know now than later if it’s a dealbreaker for you.”

“No, that’s fine. Great, actually. I’m not really sure if I want them either. I just, haven’t been around them much, you know?”

“Well, my family’s Irish Catholic so I’m sure there will be some babies for you to hang out with in no time,” Arya laughed.

Gendry couldn’t resist any more and reached out to drag her onto his lap. “I look forward to it,” he said, reaching up to pull one of the pins from her hair and watching as a thin tendril fell free. He reached up to find another one. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being honest with me. For putting everything out in the open. I know stuff like this isn’t exactly your favorite. It’s not mine either.”

“I don’t mind,” she said, shrugging as he pulled the final pin from her hair and watched it fall freely around her face. “You’re worth it.” 

He combed his fingers through her newly released hair and dragged her face towards him. “You’re worth it too,” he assured her just before their lips collided.

For once in his life, Gendry found that he was quite content with the unknown.


	13. Someon to Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gendry finds someone to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late! Chapter title and lyrics by Vancouver Sleep Clinic.

_ _

_ Too lost and hurting to carry your load _

_ We all need someone to hold _

_ You’ve been fighting the memory all on your own _

_ Nothing washes, nothing grows _

_ I know how it feels being by yourself in the rain _

_ We all need someone to stay _

  
  
  


Arya stretched, craning her neck from side to side as she returned to wakefulness. 

“Almost there,” Gendry said, reaching over the armrest to squeeze her hand.

She stretched her legs and wiggled her toes, and wished she could walk around again. “How long was I out?”

“About forty minutes.” 

The plane was nearly full and Arya was glad that she had sprung for business class tickets. Gendry would have completely refused first class, but at least they had a bit of extra legroom as they began their descent towards LAX. It wasn’t a horribly long trip, but they’d woken up early to catch their six AM flight and Arya’s nap had been just what she needed to feel human again. 

She pulled the elastic from her hair and combed her fingers through it before tying half of it up again. “How long has it been since you were back in LA?”

“Christmas,” he said. “I probably wouldn’t have gone back until winter break this year if you hadn’t given the tickets. What about you?”

“I haven’t gone back since I finished high school. Four years was more than enough for me.”

Technically it hadn’t been four full years. She went home to New York for christmas break and summer vacation, as well as thanksgiving and all but one Easter weekend. Still, the land of sun and fun had always been more Sansa’s speed. Arya had missed the gruff, no-nonsense people of New York, though she had managed to find the next best thing in her boxing coach, Sandor Clegane. The man was a total hardass with burns on half of his face that surgery could only do so much to fix. The ex-marine had always enjoyed trying to get under her skin as they trained. It wasn’t until she started giving as good as she got that they had been able to form an unconventional sort of comradery. Part of her wondered what he was up to, but the other part assumed it was just more of the same. 

“Let me guess,” Gendry teased, “too hot for you?

“Something like that.”

  
  


They’d managed to pack everything they needed for the week into their carry-ons and Arya’s backpack, though that did mean that Arya had to wear her hiking boots on the flight. It ended up making security checkpoints a nightmare, but it was worth it when they got to bypass the baggage claim and head straight into the waiting arms of Gendry’s family. 

Shireen practically flew into Gendry’s arms, forcing him to stagger backwards to keep from falling over. 

“Have you gotten taller? That can’t be possible,” Gendry laughed, setting her back down. “One of these days you’re gonna knock me right on my ass.”

“At which point I will claim my rightful place as the supreme sibling,” she said haughtily.

“I didn’t realize the title was still up for grabs,” Arya said.

Shireen wrapped her arms around Arya’s shoulders as Gendry pulled Marya into a hug. “I let him think he has a chance. Anyway, I’m dying to hear about your summer. Gendry hardly tells me any of the exciting parts.”

Two days after he had met Mya, Gendry had spent nearly three hours on a video call with Shireen, explaining the truth of their relationship to her and telling her about his newfound siblings. She’d been horrified at Robert’s abandonment of them all, but pretty unsurprised about the rest. Arya had tried not to pry too much about what was said between them, but Gendry had seemed less tense afterward.

“Well, your version of exciting and his version are two different things,” Arya reminded her. “I’ll tell you all the good stuff tonight, okay?”

They shared a conspiratory glance, then Arya turned so that Marya could give her a hug. 

“Is this everything?” Davos gestured to their bags.

“We travel light,” Arya said, shrugging.

“Let’s get this loaded up. I’m sure you two are starving by now. That garbage they feed you on the plane is hardly edible.”

* * *

  
  


The time difference meant that they stopped for lunch in the middle of the morning, but Arya certainly didn’t mind having brunch instead. Gendry sat next to her in their corner booth, happily munching his way through a plate of chicken and waffles as he and Arya caught Davos and Marya up on the PG version of their summer. 

Shireen was a bit starstruck and wanted to know everything about what it was like to live with Theon Greyjoy. Arya and Gendry silently agreed not to mention the Fourth of July party he’d thrown. Arya swore the top she’d worn that night still smelled like weed and tequila.

“I saw the video you did with him,” Shireen said. “It was really different from his usual content. Was that your idea?”

“I  _ am  _ much smarter than him, but that was actually Theon’s idea. He said he wanted to try something different.”

It had actually been fun, though Gendry refused to participate. Arya wasn’t surprised. He had almost no social media presence at all, so putting himself out there for millions to see was pretty much out of the question. 

They had gotten him to agree to hold one of the cameras though. He took shots of their hands as she and Theon took turns decorating cupcakes. ‘Interviewing My Sister While Decorating Cupcakes’ had hit #1 on YouTube’s trending page about twelve hours after it went live.

“So, tell us about your internship,” Marya said, looking at Gendry.

“Did you get that contract you wanted? We didn’t want to pester you about it, but…”

Gendry took a sip of water. “I did. And I turned it down.”

“What? Why? You said you really wanted it,” Shireen said.

“I wanted the contract because I didn’t know how I was going to afford grad school without it. I haven’t closed any doors,” he added, apparently catching the concerned looks on Davos and Marya’s faces, “but I told Mr. Penrose that the grant should go to someone who needed it more than I did. He said he understood and that I should apply to join the company full-time when I graduated, so we left off on good terms.”

“Do you think you’ll go back next summer?” Davos asked before tossing the last bite of his bacon in his mouth.

“If there’s a good opening. I’m not opposed to looking at other companies though.”

He tossed her a brief glance and Arya remembered what he’d said the night that he came home from his last day at Stormbreaker.

_ “I don’t want to pressure you, but I… I was just wondering if you had any frontrunners for grad school. Two years is a long time and I want to make sure that I can be with you.” _

She smiled a bit at the memory, then blushed as memories of the rest of the night flooded her mind’s eye. She’d had to admit that she didn’t have any clear favorites yet, but that she definitely wanted to be in a large city. She had always told herself that she would never change her life plans to accommodate anyone else, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that he wasn’t asking her to. If anything, he was changing  _ his _ plans for her.

Oddly enough,  _ that _ had been the conversation that made her heart race and her head spin. The talk they’d had after dinner with her parents had been serious, but it had all felt so abstract. Gendry telling her that he was narrowing down his job options based on what would allow him to be with her in two years had felt  _ real _ , and surprisingly not frightening.

“Well, we’re proud of you,” Marya said, reaching for Gendry’s hand over the table. “Just getting the internship was impressive.”

Gendry smiled softly at her affectionate tone. “Thank you. Now, what have I missed over the summer?”

  
  
“Shireen’s volleyball team placed second in their last tournament,” Marya told him excitedly.

“You did? That’s great, Bean!”

Shireen blushed, ducking her head to try to hide the redness of her face. “Thanks. We really thought we could win it, but they came from behind in the last match.”

“You’ll get ‘em next year,” Arya assured her while Davos grumbled something about the refs being a bunch of perverts.

“You should see what they make these girls wear,” he added to Gendry. “Bunch o’ kids and the coach has ‘em prancing around in swimsuits.”   
  
“Because we play on the beach,” Shireen reminded him. “And for the record, most of the refs were women.”

Davos grumbled something else, but Arya didn’t hear what.

“It’s no big deal,” Shireen continued. “I just do it to stay in shape for the school team anyway.”

“That’s coming up, right? If I remember, that’s a fall sport,” Arya said.

Shireen nodded and began explaining the tryout schedule. By the time she was done, the waitress had come to drop off the check. Davos refused to let either of them pay, despite their best efforts, so Arya left an extra tip on the table before they headed out.

* * *

As Gendry had predicted, she was ushered into Shireen’s room by Marya while he went to put his bag in his old room. Shireen’s room had violet walls with bright white trim, and one of those bunk beds that formed a T from above, with a full sized bed below and a twin above. She offered Arya her pick of the two and she went for the top bunk, noticing the stuffed doe on the bottom and assuming it was where Shireen usually slept. 

“The top drawer of the dresser is empty,” she said, indicating the piece of furniture beneath the window. “I figured you might want to unpack some of your stuff.”

Arya thanked her and took her bag over to begin unloading her clothes into the drawer. The top of the dresser was littered with framed photos and a few trinkets that Arya glanced over as she placed her meticulously folded clothes into the drawer. There were pictures of her friends, her volleyball team, her and Gendry, and Davos and Marya. She noticed a small box in the corner with purple stones and gold paint interlaced with the carvings on the top and wondered if it was just for decoration, or if the younger girl kept some little treasure in there.

“I can’t believe you have all your stuff in there,” Shireen said, indicating Arya’s carry-on. 

“I used to fly a lot when I was in high school,” she explained. “I lived in LA with my dad and my sister, and my mom and my brothers lived back in New York, so we went back and forth a lot. I got really good at packing light.”

“He ran Robert’s company, right? Your dad, I mean.”

Arya nodded, closing the drawer and coming to sit next to Shireen on the bed. “Yeah, he did. He and Robert had been friends since they were in boarding school together, so when his health started to fail, he asked my dad to come look after the company ‘just until he recovered’. Obviously that didn’t happen.”

“He was a terrible person,” Shireen said quietly. “Even my dad hardly wanted to see him on holidays. Still, I wish he hadn’t died, just so Gendry could at least get some answers from him.”

Arya sighed. “He’s making peace with it.”

Shireen looked like she was about to say something when Gendry poked his head in the open doorway.

“Get changed, Bean. I’m gonna go check your work.”

Shireen shot up, heading immediately to her closet. Gendry was gone before Arya could ask what he meant.

“What was all that about?”

Shireen pulled a pair of jeans off her shelf and grinned. “Go to the garage and see for yourself.”

Confused, she retraced her steps until she found the door that she suspected would lead her to the garage. Gendry was already there, crouched down to examine the tires of a sleek black motorcycle.

“How did I not know about this?”

He looked up at her, a mischievous grin on his face. “How did you think I got around out here? I never take the truck back.”

“I never really thought about it,” she admitted. “This is what you were talking about with Shireen?”

“I had her do some basic maintenance on it while I was away. She’ll be sixteen soon. I figured it’s never too soon to learn about how to take care of a vehicle.” He stood up, apparently finished with his inspection.

“When did you even get this?”

“Summer after sophomore year. It was a total piece of crap, but I was able to fix it up pretty easily.”   
  
“Just like Frankentruck,” Arya said fondly. 

They’d taken the old truck out just a week earlier to celebrate the conclusion of their respective internships and driven for an hour and a half to find Arya’s favorite little diner. She and Jon had stumbled upon it on their way home for fall break her freshman year and their mile long list of milkshake flavors had kept her coming back as often as possible after that. They’d taken their orders to go and parked alongside a little lake in the small town to have a picnic in the bed of the truck. Gendry had nearly swooned over their french fries, then pulled a stack of blankets from the backseat and laid them out so they could stargaze together. It had ended with both of them naked, of course, and Arya had gotten mosquito bites in particularly uncomfortable places, but the sex itself had been quite magical.

“Yeah, like Frankentruck.” She could tell by the look on his face that he was thinking the same thing she was.

“So, how did I do?” Shireen’s entrance into the garage had been a bit jarring, but Arya took a moment to be grateful that she hadn’t walked in on them doing anything more than talking. She refused to be embarrassed about Theon walking in on them a couple of times over the summer (God knew she’d caught him in far more compromising positions) but Shireen was different. She was younger, for one, and Arya felt oddly compelled to protect her innocence. She wasn’t quite sure why, but she chalked it up to the fact that she was Gendry’s little sister and he wouldn’t want her seeing that. 

“It looks great! Did you tell Davos and Marya that I was taking you out for a ride?”

“Yes,” she said, rolling her eyes slightly. “Marya said to wear helmets.”

“Them’s the rules,” he said, turning around and pulling a pair of motorcycle helmets down from the shelf behind him. He paused to give Arya a quick kiss before pulling his on, then checking that Shireen’s was fastened correctly. “String Bean here gets dibs on the first ride, but I promise I’ll take you out for a tour of town after dinner,” he told Arya, then swung his leg over the bike.

Shireen pressed the button to open the garage door just as Gendry started up the motorcycle, flooding the space with noise. Shireen hopped on behind him like a pro and Arya watched as they idled down the driveway, then pulled out into the street.

Arya watched them go, then turned around to head back into the house. She found Marya in the kitchen, sipping from a polka dot mug and skimming through a magazine on her tablet. “There you are, dear! Did you want some coffee? I’m sure the time difference is doing a number on you already.”   
  


“That would be great, actually. Thank you. Where did Davos go?”

Marya pulled a mug down from above the sink and filled it up for her. “He’s down in the basement. He likes to do his little woodworking projects down there,” she said with a smile. “Sugar?”

“No, thank you. I drink it black.”   
  
Marya set the mug on the table and returned to her chair as Wrya sat down. “I take it Gendry showed you that motorcycle of his?”

“He did,” Arya confirmed, taking a deep whiff of the fresh coffee in front of her. “I’m not sure I understand the appeal just yet.”

“The appeal is that he can go fast, spend hardly anything on gas, and give me an aneurysm all at once.”

“I’m guessing you’re not a fan?”

“Not hardly. I love that boy, truly, but I don’t know why he insists on being so reckless. It doesn’t help that Shireen idolized everything he does. All she would talk about this week was how he’d trusted her with his motorcycle and she couldn’t let him down.”

Arya smiled into her mug. “Well, I can understand that. I thought everything my older brothers did was automatically cool when I was her age.”   
  
“How many brothers do you have, exactly? Gendry’s explained it to me, but I can’t keep track.”

“That’s alright, neither can my parents,” she joked. “It’s sort of complicated but I can give you the short version. Theon, the one who makes the videos, is my foster brother. He’s been with my family since he was ten. Then there’s Jon, who’s biologically my cousin, but my parents adopted him when he was a baby because my aunt died giving birth to him. Next is Robb, then my sister, then me, then Bran, then Rickon.”

“And here I thought two was a lot of work,” she laughed. “Bless your parents, honestly. How are they?”   
  
“Good. Already trying to shove us down the aisle,” she half laughed. 

“Don’t mind them,” Marya said, patting her hand over the table. “I’m sure you two will do things in your own time, though I won’t lie and say that I’m opposed to having some little feet running around here again,” she added.

Arya took a long sip from her mug, then set it down gently on the table. “We’re actually not sure if we want kids,” she admitted. “We’ve talked about it a bit and decided to see how we feel about it in a few years.”   


  
“Not because you disagree, I hope. It may seem like a small thing now, but I’ve seen more than a few couples torn apart over that decision. You wouldn’t believe the resentment that it can breed.”

  
  
“No, it’s not that,” Arya assured her. “It’s just that Gendry hasn’t really been around little kids much, and I’m really focused on building my career and traveling. So…” she shrugged.

“I’m sure you'll figure it out when you’re ready. You’re still so young, dear. There’s no rush to settle down.”

Arya felt a rush of relief at the older woman’s words. Maybe, she thought to herself, she had time to do all the things she wanted to and still be a parent. Maybe being a journalist and being a mom weren’t as mutually exclusive as she’d been led to believe by her own mother. Plus, she sure as fuck wasn’t planning on having  _ seven _ kids. No, three or fewer seemed like a reasonable number. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by the roar of Gendry’s motorcycle pulling back into the driveway. They would need to revisit their discussion about the future, that much was clear, but Marya was right. They had time.

* * *

He didn't end up taking her out on the motorcycle until late the next morning. He helped her adjust her helmet until it was situated snugly on her head. She was going to have horrible helmet hair, but she didn’t care much when they were flying down the road, slicing through the stagnant summer air. 

He showed her his old high school and took her out to lunch at his favorite little sandwich shop. When they were finished, he drove her over to Mott’s body shop where he had worked as a high schooler. His old boss was there, working on an oil change when they pulled in. Gendry proudly introduced them and informed the older man that he was headed to grad school. Mott stuck her as a serious man, so she could see how he and Gendry would have gotten along back then. They don’t stay much longer, but his old boss offered him congratulations on his recent accomplishments and wished him the best for the future. 

By the time they made it back to the house, she felt somehow closer to him. It was like every place he showed her revealed a part of him that had been locked away before. Pieces of the past started to fall together before her eyes, and it only made her love him more. Her heart constricted at the thought of teenage Gendry riding his second-hand bicycle down the street after school, racing to the auto repair shop to get as many hours in as he could. She could almost picture him cutting across the soccer fields behind the school with a heavy backpack and a serious look on his face. 

She wished she could have known that boy. She wished she could have helped him. But then again, maybe she was, in her own way.

* * *

  
  


He pulled her into his room while Shireen was in the shower that night. Davos and Marya had gone to bed about an hour before, leaving the three of them to watch a procedural that Arya and Shireen both liked. Gendry had spent the whole time asking who each character was, resulting in a handful of popcorn to the face when Shireen had gotten annoyed with him. 

He shut the door behind them, gently easing it shut before pressing her up against it with his body. “I’ve been wanting to do this all day,” he murmured, and then his lips were on hers. 

Arya sighed into the kiss, trying to tell him that she’d been desperate for him too without separating their lips. His hands grasped her waist, trying to pull her closer as he abandoned her lips in favor of kissing his way down her neck. She reached down, stroking him through his basketball shorts to remind him that they were a bit short on time just as he nipped at her skin. 

“Gendry, come on,” she pleaded, just barely above a whisper. 

He let his hands slip down to cup her ass and gave it a squeeze. “You ready?”

“Always.” She was embarrassingly wet just from kissing him, though she didn’t think he would mind. She spied a desk across the room and nodded towards it. “Over there.”

He got a devious look on his face, then pulled her over by the hand, positioning her so that her palms were against the painted wood of the desktop. She kept still as he came to stand behind her, sending a thrill through her body. His left hand came up to toy with her hair while the right one splayed over her stomach, then dove beneath the waistband of her sweatpants. 

Two fingers found her clit, circled for a moment, then slipped lower to tease her entrance. Gendry must have been satisfied with the slickness that coated his fingertips because just as quickly as they had appeared, his fingers were gone. She could hear him licking the digits clean, but didn’t move from where he’d placed her.

“Fuck, you taste so good,” he growled. “I wish we had more time.”

They didn’t though, so instead he pulled her sweats down to her knees, gave her ass another appreciative squeeze, then stood up behind her once again. 

Arya both loved and hated this moment. Where would he put his hands? How far would he bend her over? How punishing would his pace be once he finally let himself slip inside her body? The anticipation was the sweetest type of torture she knew.

He placed a gentle kiss behind her ear. “If you make a single noise, I’ll stop and send you to bed soaking wet and needy, got it?”

_ Fuck _ she loved it when he was bossy. She nodded wordlessly and was rewarded with another kiss to the side of her neck. “Good.”

She could still feel the silky texture of his shorts against the backs of her thighs when he finally pushed into her, stopping when he was buried as deep as he could go. He must have just pushed them down enough to free his cock, she realized as one of his hands crept up under her shirt and the other gripped her hip. He started out with a few shallow thrusts, searching for the angle that they both liked best as he began toying with her nipple.

He gave her hip a squeeze and withdrew a little further, then slammed back into her with enough force that she had to brace herself on her forearms instead of just her hands. Gendry let out a rush of air and Arya knew the new angle was as fantastic for him as it was for her. He rolled her nipple between his fingers as he thrust again and she had to bite the back of her wrist to keep from moaning out loud.

She could hear the faint hum of the water running in the bathroom next door, but she couldn’t focus on it for the life of her. All that existed from that moment on was the exquisite thickness of Gendry’s cock and the bolts of pleasure that it sent skittering through her body. She was so close, nearly to the point of begging, but she knew that a single word would end it all and leave her aching for him all night long.

Mercifully, he must have sensed what she needed because the hand on her hip was suddenly between her legs. She knew he loved it when she touched herself in this position, so she couldn’t help but wonder if he thought his own fingertips felt as nice when his balls bumped up against them with every thrust. It couldn’t have been terrible or he wouldn’t be kissing the back of her neck the way he was.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” he whispered. She was relieved that he sounded just as desperate as she felt as his pace increased. “You gonna come for me?”

  
  
She didn’t answer, just bit her wrist again as her legs shook and her body surrendered to the delicious feeling of the two of them together. She was vaguely aware of his hand leaving her breast to hold her by the hip as he continued pounding into her. Then suddenly he was spilling hot spurts of semen into her and trying to muffle his groan in the crook of her neck and it sent another shiver of pleasure right down to her core. 

“Damn,” she finally whispered between heavy breaths.

Gendry didn’t say anything, just pulled his softening cock out of her and watched their combined spendings drip down the inside of her thigh until she stood up. He seemed to snap back to reality at that and went over to his closet to find a pair of washcloths for them to clean up with, cleaning himself up quickly and putting his shorts back in place before kneeling in front of her and wiping away most of the mess between her legs. 

When he’d buried the towels in his hamper, and she had put her sweats and panties back in place, he came to stand behind her once again and pulled her close against his chest. “I love you,” Gendry said quietly, then kissed the top of her head.

Arya could’ve melted in that moment, but she wanted a proper kiss. So, she turned herself around within the cocoon of his arms and dragged him down to her by the back of the neck. He was more than willing to comply and Arya couldn’t help but smile into the kiss. “I love you too.”

“Can I take you for a hike tomorrow?”

She leaned her head against his chest and grinned. “I don’t know, I might be out of commission after that.”

“I take it that means it was as good for you as it was for me?”

“Oh yeah. Too bad we won’t have an excuse to have sneaky sex when we’ve got our own place.”

They’d landed the perfect apartment for the school year ahead and Arya couldn’t wait to move their stuff in when they got back to Ithaca the following week. It was a two bedroom with two baths, though the master was a fair bit bigger than the second bedroom and had an attached bath. It wasn’t huge, but it was nice, close to a park, and near enough to Jon and Ygritte that they could keep their resolution of weekly dinners together. They’d considered a few one bedrooms, but Gendry liked the idea of having two. The plan was to use the smaller spare room as an office space, but it would also have an extra bed for guests and extra storage space to keep Nymeria’s things out of the way. 

The nerves she’d felt when he’d first asked her to move in together were all but gone. After living with him all summer, she knew it was something they could manage during the school year. The only thing they had to worry about now was the fact that they had two of almost everything. 

“I could make one up,” Gendry offered. 

“Alright. And to answer your question, I would love to go on a hike with you tomorrow.”

She could hear the water shut off and by the time Shireen poked her head in the door looking for Arya, they were standing side by side, looking through Gendry’s senior year book.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“You two look ready for an adventure,” Davos said, glancing over his newspaper at them as Arya helped Gendry pack a lunch for their hike.

“I’m taking Arya up to Gold Canyon,” Gendry said simply and Davos nodded. It was already quiet in the house since Marya had taken Shireen to the mall to shop for school clothes. Arya hoped Davos wouldn’t mind a few hours to himself.

They packed water bottles, their lunches, Arya’s camera, and a blanket into a backpack, then climbed onto Gendry’s bike. He took her away from the residential streets of the valley and up through more winding roads at the base of the mountains. Arya had to admit that she was a little disappointed when he pulled into a parking area and cut the engine. She was getting a little addicted to riding the city streets pressed against Gendry’s back with nothing to slow them down. 

Gendry insisted on taking the backpack as they hiked up the trail, sometimes in silence, sometimes talking back and forth about whatever was on their mind. By the time they stopped to take a drink, they’d already made a travel bucket list. And by the time they came upon a waterfall carved out amongst the colorful lacework of the flower-studded landscape, they’d also debated the merits of cats vs. dogs and whittled down Arya’s grad school options to a ranked list of ten schools. 

“Wow. That’s beautiful,” she said, already reaching for her camera. 

“I’ll take you up to the top, then we can have lunch.”

She snapped a few shots of the waterfall and the flowers along the trail, then followed him onward and up a steep vein of the trail network. It was much harder than the rest of the trail, but Arya could easily manage it. Between the work and the heat both of them were sweating by the time they reached the top of the waterfall and Arya’s stomach was crying out for lunch.

Gendry helped her spread their blanket out far enough away from the falls that they could still hear each other over the roar of the water. They ate in relative silence, content to enjoy the view without any conversation. It wasn’t until Arya was putting her tupperware back into the backpack that Gendry spoke up.

“Thanks for coming with me today.”

“Of course. It's beautiful here. I’m glad that you invited me.”

She glanced over to him and noticed the far-off look on his face as he scanned the view. “This place seems special to you,” she noted.

He nodded, finally looking up to meet her eyes. “I came here a few days before I left for Cornell to spread my mom’s ashes over the waterfall. It was the only place I could think of that was beautiful enough to be her final resting place.”

Arya took in the river, the mountainside, the bright blooming flowers that dotted the grass, and she had to admit that she saw his point. 

“Don’t tell Mya though,” he added. “I’m pretty sure it was illegal.”

Arya couldn’t help but grin at that. “I’m sure she would understand. From what you’ve told me about her, it sounds like your mom would have loved it here.”

“Definitely. She would’ve liked the idea of pieces of her being part of this place forever.” He glanced down at his hands, fidgeting subconsciously as he spoke. “Towards the end, when she knew she wasn’t going to get better, she talked a lot about what would happen when she was gone. We weren’t religious or anything, but she always told me that when her body failed, her spirit would be free. She said she didn’t want me to pump her body full of chemicals and seal her up in a casket forever, so I brought her here.”

“I wish I had known you back then,” she admitted.

“Trust me, you really wouldn’t have liked me. I was so  _ angry _ at the whole damn world.”

“You had every right to be. Still, I wish I could give little Gendry a hug or something, tell him that it turns out okay.”

“He never would have believed you. If I had that angry kid in front of me right now and I tried to tell him what my life’s like now, he would have laughed in my face.”

There was a long silence in which Arya let him sift through his thoughts.

“I wish you could’ve met her,” he said after a while. “You would’ve made her laugh so hard.”

Arya reached for his hand and gave it a soft squeeze. “I wish I had known her too. I wish I could thank her for making such a wonderful man.”

Despite the heat, Gendry reached out and pulled her close, kissing the top of her head.

“I love you,” he said, though his voice was choked up.

“I love you too.”

They stayed like that for a long moment and Arya didn’t mind at all. She would have stayed forever under the California sky with the sound of the waterfall in one ear and Gendry’s heartbeat in the other. She could stay with him forever and never want to walk away.

And she would.


	14. Rather Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When I am with you there's no place I'd rather be...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Sorry for the late update, but hopefully the long chapter makes up for it! This one takes place five years after the last chapter, August 2021. Lyrics and chapter title by Clean Bandit, though I recommend the Jasmine Thompson version if you like to listen while you read. Enjoy!

_ We're a thousand miles from comfort, we have traveled land and sea _

_ But as long as you are with me, there's no place I'd rather be _

_ I would wait forever, exalted in the scene _

_ As long as I am with you, my heart continues to beat _

The sun was setting over the desert, painting a citron watercolor behind the Las Vegas skyline as the city lights came awake against the silhouettes of the buildings. Arya took a long moment to enjoy the view as she fastened her earrings, then smoothed the skirt of the little black dress she was wearing for the night. Even on a Wednesday night, the city was alight with activity.

The trip had been a Christmas gift from their parents to the older kids and their significant others, though it had taken them nearly nine months to make use of their generosity. Catelyn had not-so-subtly hinted that she would like this week away to be the siblings' last hoorah before they all got to work on creating a small army of grandchildren for her. Ned had simply said that he wanted them to have a chance to relax and celebrate all that they had achieved recently. 

And they truly did have so much to celebrate. She had reached a year with her company in June and Gendry had gotten promoted the month before. Jon and Ygritte had celebrated their first anniversary in April and Robb was happily married to one of Sansa’s friends from law school. In a bizarre twist of fate, Sansa had run into Arya’s old boxing coach at Harvard and somehow fallen for the ugly bastard. Arya sure as hell didn’t understand what Sansa saw in him, but at least _ he _ wouldn't hurt her, so she’d swallowed her pride and been the maid of honor at their wedding earlier that year.

Theon’s YouTube channel was doing better than ever, and he’d started a popular podcast as well. She missed being able to see him on short notice, but living in Los Angeles seemed to really make him happy. Although, that could also have had something to do with his poorly concealed relationship with Jeyne. There was no erasing the past between her and Sansa’s best friend, but after seeing the hell that she had been through since graduating college, Arya couldn’t bring herself to cling to the remaining bad blood between them.

Plus Arya loved Theon, and she liked who he was when he was with her. Still his goofy, confident self, but with a bit more sense and restraint. Helping Jeyne face her stalker both in and out of the courtroom had forced him to grow up a bit, and Arya had to admit that she kind of liked it. He was _ almost _ a well-adjusted human adult now. 

Bran would be starting his Master’s degree in just over a week, having graduated from Brown a couple of weeks before Sansa’s wedding. He and Jojen had finally revealed their relationship to Ned and Catelyn in their sophomore year of undergrad. Arya had been pleasantly surprised to learn that their mother had taken the news in stride and left their new apartment without creating a scene. 

Rickon was already back at school for the year since soccer season was nearly in full swing. Arya’s suspicions had been right and Lyanna had come out as a lesbian in their junior year. Rickon, sweet idiot that he was, had been nothing but supportive and both of them had accepted offers to play soccer at the University of Michigan. They even had an apartment together, which they shared with Myrcella Lannister. Arya had thought Sansa was crazy to keep in touch with her ex’s siblings, but Rickon and Lyanna both said that Myrcella was a complete sweetheart and were glad that Sansa had introduced them.

“Hey, did we agree to meet in the lobby, or Robb and Margaery’s room?” Gendry asked, coming out of the bathroom in slacks and a button-up. He looked absolutely delectable with his top few buttons undone and his hair still damp from the shower. Arya couldn’t help but wish they had more time before they were supposed to meet her siblings and their various significant others. 

She had honestly questioned Sansa when she had suggested Las Vegas, given that many of them had little to no interest in gambling, but her sister had assured her that there would be plenty to do. Gendy had been quick to remind her that the worst case scenario ended up with them bored and naked in their hotel room all week, so she’d given in. Sansa had sent them all an itinerary a few weeks after they booked their hotel rooms (because _ of course _ Sansa had made an itinerary) and Arya had found that she was actually interested in most of the group activities that her sister had planned. 

She and Gendry had been free to fill most of their days however they wanted, sometimes doing things as a couple, sometimes meeting up with a smaller group to do things they were all keen on, then the whole group would meet up in the evening for dinner and some sort of activity. Tonight they were all meeting up for a show, and tomorrow they were supposed to go see the Bellagio Fountain after dinner. They were planning on spending the day relaxing and shopping since they were departing on Saturday night.

“Lobby, I think? You should probably text Sansa just to be sure,” she said, tucking her recently cut hair behind her ear. It was nice to have it short in the heat.

Gendry pulled his phone off the nightstand and Arya crossed the room to the desk where her laptop had taken up residence since they’d arrived. They had a few minutes before they were supposed to meet up and leave for the show they were attending, so she figured she could kill time. Her laptop’s wallpaper-- a picture of her, her parents, and Gendry at her graduation from NYU -- popped up as soon as she finished typing in her password, followed by all of her applications. There was a little red dot on her email icon, indicating that she had three unread messages.

The first was from one of her coworkers, giving her the rundown of the morning’s meeting and listing off some of the ideas that had been offered up for potential future stories. The second was from Shireen, including a short greeting and a file full of pictures she had taken over the summer. Arya flipped through a few of them, admiring the grassy mountains and sunlit beaches before opening the final email. 

It wasn’t until she was reading it through for the third time that Gendry came to rest a hand on her shoulder. “Did you hear me?”

She finally tore her eyes away from the screen to look up at his face. “Huh?”

“I said we should head downstairs in a couple of minutes. What’s up with you? You seem… preoccupied.”

“Sorry, I got an email from my boss. He has an assignment for me when I get back.”

“Where do they want you now?”

It was pretty common for her company to send her abroad when she was researching a story, but she was never gone for more than ten days or so. Well, until now.

“Mexico City. There’s a trial coming up there that they want me to cover.”

Gendry’s brow knit at that and he turned to look her in the eye. “For how long?”

Her heart felt like it was in her stomach, twisting around like a bear in a trap. She took a deep breath, meeting the eyes that had been her comfort for more than five years with her own. “I don’t know.”

“Okay. Well, do you have a guess? A week? Two weeks? A _ month _?”

“I honestly can’t say. It _ should _ be over before Christmas, but that’s not guaranteed.”

“_ Christmas? _ Arya, it’s August! You’re not actually considering this, are you?”

“Are you seriously getting mad at me right now? This is _ my job _, Gendry. A job that you knew I wanted from day one, mind you. This story could make or break my career and you’re asking me to pass it up?”

That seemed to give him pause. She was right though, and he knew it. This was what he had signed up for in their relationship. It had always been a possibility and he had promised that he would never hold her back. 

She hadn’t ever complained during his first years at Stormbreaker, even though she was doing internships, working as a TA, and taking her grad school classes. Not once had she been bitter about the late nights at the lab or the social dinners with his coworkers when she just wanted to curl up on the couch with Nymeria and sleep. She’d compromised because she knew how much it mattered to him and now it was Gendry’s turn. 

She closed the laptop and sighed, looking for her purse. “Can we just talk about this later? We’re going to make everyone late for the show if we don’t go do-”

“I’m going with you.”

Her head snapped towards him out of sheer surprise. “What?”

“I’m going with you,” he repeated, more forcefully this time. “If you’re going to Mexico indefinitely, I’m going with you.”

“I don’t exactly get a plus one. Besides, you have a job to do at home. I know Marty loves you, but there’s no way he’s going to let you take a leave of absence on this short of notice so you can hang out in Mexico with your girlfriend indefinitely.”

“No, but he would probably let me work out of the production headquarters in Mexico City if I asked.”

Arya took a deep breath, closing her eyes as she let it out. She didn’t want to argue, of course. She didn’t like being frustrated with him, but he was a fixer. He would run himself ragged trying to find solutions that didn’t exist when all she needed half the time was some sympathy and support. 

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but my company isn’t just going to hand you a ticket and let you tag along. It would be a liability for them. There are legal issues involved that we can’t circumvent unless...”

Gendry stared at her as her words trailed off. “Unless?”

But Arya’s mind was already shifting into overdrive. They _ were _ in Vegas. And it wasn’t like it wasn’t something they’d discussed before...

“Marry me,” she blurted out before her nerve could falter.

Gendry stared at her for a long moment, then burst out laughing.

Arya felt a pang of regret hit her almost instantly. Was he so opposed to the idea? They’d discussed it more than once before and he’d always agreed. “What? It’s not _ that _crazy,” she said defensively.

Gendry shook his head and calmed himself enough to speak as he came to stand in front of her. “I’m not laughing because it’s crazy. I’m laughing because this is just so _ us _ . If you had just waited until tomorrow to check your email, I could have done this properly.”   
  


“Done what?”

He reached into his pocket as he knelt before her and Arya’s heart nearly stopped. 

“Arya, you are the only person on the planet that I would blindly follow to a foreign country without a second thought. Since the first time you kissed me my world has been chaotic and beautiful and bright, and it’s all because of you. You challenge me every day to be the kind of person that you deserve and I want to keep striving to be that person for the rest of my life. There is nobody else I would want to build a future with. So, Arya Meave Stark, will you marry me?”

She barely even glanced at the ring he now clutched between his fingers, just crouched down enough to kiss him with every ounce of love that was flowing through her body and slowly guide him back to his feet. 

“Is that a yes?” He half laughed when they finally parted.

Oh, right. She hadn’t actually answered him. “Yes, of course it’s a yes!” 

Gendry gave her another enthusiastic kiss,cradling her face in his hands as well as he could, then reached down to capture her hand and slip the ring on. It was only when he brought her hand up to his lips that she got a good look at the new accessory that he had placed there. It was, in a word, perfect. 

She vaguely wondered how he’d figured out her ring size as she admired the perfect fit of the slim gold band. The center stone was a smoky hexagon, sliced through with shards of black and flanked by three tiny black stones on each side. 

“Do you like it?” He looked a little apprehensive as he watched her appraise her accessory.

“That doesn’t even begin to cover it,” she said. “It’s perfect.”

He seemed to relax at that, drawing her closer so they could look at it together. “I know how you feel about the whole diamond industry, so I wanted to get you something ethical. It sort of took forever to find something that suited you, but when I saw this one…”

“It’s perfect,” she reiterated. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“The stones aren’t actually all that rare,” he admitted, sounding guilty. She was sure he’d heard the same bullshit engagement ring guidelines a hundred times over his search and been guilt tripped for not pumping fifteen grand into a diamond. She couldn’t be more happy that he hadn’t given in. “The little ones are onyx, and the one in the middle is quartz. The black bits are tourmaline, apparently. Oh, and the girl who sold it to me said that the gold is recycled. I thought you’d like that.”

Arya felt her heart constrict as he spoke. It was one thing to know that he had picked something that suited her so perfectly -- that he had known her well enough to pick something that she honestly would have chosen for herself, given the chance. It was another thing entirely to know that he had truly listened to her over the past few years and taken all of her little comments to heart. It wasn’t something they discussed at length, but she would usually reiterate her opinions when a friend or relative got engaged and Gendry had obviously remembered. 

“It’s amazing,” she assured him, all anger long forgotten. “I will happily wear it for the rest of my life.”

“The rest of our lives,” Gendry said, sounding a bit dazed.

“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” She tried to make it sound like a joke, but her heart was starting to race again.

“No, never. I just can’t believe you said yes,” he admitted.

“Oh, you better believe it. I’m gonna marry the shit out of you.”

“Yeah?”

“Hell yeah! Wife me up, babe.”

She’d expected to be nervous, but all she felt was a rush of excitement at the idea of marrying him. If there had been doubt before, he had driven every last wisp of it away. He was going to be hers. She was going to be his. They were going to be themselves but they were going to be bound together, and the thought didn’t seem so miserable as she’d pictured in her younger days.

Maybe because there was a difference between the jesses that kept a falcon from flying as high as it wished and the ropes that kept a ship docked safely between journeys. Gendry did not tie her down -- didn’t keep her from flying to greater heights. He moored her to safety when the seas around her were rough and gladly let her sail when favorable winds found her. 

  
  


“We should do it soon,” Gendry said. “Before we leave.”

Arya smiled up at her _ fiance _. “How’s Friday night?”

“Perfect.”

* * *

Sansa looked nearly ready to have an aneurysm when they finally raced down to the lobby. “Where have you been? We’re going to be late if we don’t leave right now.”

They were not going to be late. Sansa had overplanned, as usual, but Arya didn’t mention that. 

“Sorry,” she shrugged. “We were a little busy getting engaged.”

Ten pairs of eyes simultaneously darted towards her left hand. 

And then a flood of excitement washed over them as everyone seemed to congratulate them at once. 

Sansa even squealed a bit. “_ Finally _!

Jon nearly swept her off her feet when he wrapped his arms around her. “I was wondering when he would finally do it.”

“You knew?”

“Of course I knew. He sent me a picture of the ring as soon as he got it. I’ve been keeping it a secret since the week before Robb’s wedding.”

Robb’s wedding… he’d had the ring since _ December _?

Gendry must have understood the incredulous look on her face when she turned to him.

“I was waiting for the right time.”

“And the right time was after I had already proposed to you?”

“I would hardly call that a proposal,” he teased. “It was more of a demand.”

“We were under pressure,” she said with a shrug. 

Jon gave the two of them an odd look. “What do you mean you were under pressure?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you guys the other part,” Arya realized. “We’re getting married on Friday so we can move to Mexico together for the foreseeable future.”

“Okay, that’s a lot to unpack,” Sasa said after a long beat of silence. “Why don’t we all get in the cars and you two can fill us in on the way to the show?”

* * *

She ended up swearing everyone to secrecy as they filed into their seats at the theater. The last thing she wanted was for her parents to find out about their engagement from somebody else. She wanted to call them, but it was late and they were hardly in an appropriate place for that conversation, so she and Gendry had resolved to call them first thing in the morning and enjoy their night.

“I just want to keep telling people,” she admitted when they were finally headed back to their hotel room for the night. “Is that stupid?”

Gendry lifted their intertwined hands so that he could kiss her knuckles. “Not at all. I feel the same way.”

“You know, there may be a couple of night owls we can tell.”

Gendry thought about it for a moment, then clearly understood who she meant. Once they were back in their room, he pulled her down next to him on the bed and waited as she pulled out her phone. 

There was a moment of doubt as they listened to the first ring blaring through her phone speaker. It was close to midnight, meaning it would be coming up on one AM in Colorado. She was pretty sure that she remembered Meera’s schedule correctly, but there was always a chance that she had traded shifts with someone or stayed late at the hospital. Much to Arya’s relief, she accepted the video call after only a few more seconds, looking like she had just finished showering and changing into her pajamas.

“Well this is an unexpected surprise,” her friend said, grinning despite her confusion. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s great. Did you just get home?”

Meera nodded, then propped her phone up against something (presumably the wall) so she could try to tame her hair as she spoke. “Actually got off my shift on time tonight, by some miracle. I was just about to head to bed.”

“Well, this won’t take long. We just needed to ask you guys a quick question,” Gendry said

Meera looked a bit confused, but didn’t question it. “Sure just hold on a sec.”

She picked the phone back up and began to move, looking down towards the floor. “River, where’s Mama? Go find her!” Arya was pretty sure Meera didn’t need the dog’s help, but it was cute to hear the black lab trot through the house, claws tapping against the hardwood floors.

“Babe? You ready for bed? I’m almost done with this paperwork,” said a familiar voice off screen.

“Almost,” Meera said, still shuffling towards the disembodied voice. “We have a call.”

“Well tell them to fuck off. You’re supposed to be mine for the rest of the night.”

Meera rolled her eyes at her phone’s camera. “It’s your brother, darling. I’m not going to tell him to fuck off,” she said, just as she crouched down to rest her chin on her wife’s shoulder and Mya’s face came into view. 

“Oh, hi. Are you guys alright? It’s like one in the morning,” Mya said, concern laced throughout her words. 

“We’re fine,” Arya assured her. “We were just wondering what you guys were up to on Friday night.”

The newlyweds shared a look, then turned back to the screen. “Nothing much. We’ve both got the day off,” Meera said. “Why? What are you guys doing?” 

Arya could feel the sly grin tugging at the corners of her lips as Gendry pulled her closer and spoke. “Not much. Just getting married. You guys wanna come?”

* * *

Arya woke in the familiar circle of Gendry’s arms, more than content to stay right there and bask in the familiar comfort until the memory of the night before came flooding back to her. Her eyes snapped open as she raised her left hand from the mattress. There on her finger was the black and gold ring, proving that she hadn’t dreamed it all. 

_ Gendry asked me to marry him. _

_ I said yes. _

_ We’re getting married tomorrow. _

Her heart stuttered beneath her ribs. _ We’re getting married tomorrow and my parents don’t know. _

Gendry must have felt her stir because he immediately tightened his arms around her and buried his face in the crook of her neck. “Morning,” he mumbled, kissing her sleep-warmed skin. It was then that he saw what she was doing and reached out for her hand, holding it so that they could admire her ring together. “I still can’t believe you said yes.”

“We have some phone calls to make,” she reminded him. “And brunch in about an hour.”

Gendry groaned and gave up on trying to go back to sleep, though Arya caught him smiling when she rolled over to face him. They were both still naked beneath the covers, having _ thoroughly _ celebrated their engagement after getting off the phone with Mya and Meera. “I’ll be right back,” she said, reluctantly climbing out of bed and making her way to the bathroom. 

She snagged a pair of shirts on her way back and tossed one to him, then pulled on the other as she got back under the covers. 

“Marty emailed me back,” Gendry told her, unfolding his own shirt and pulling it over his head. “He said he would make some calls and get me set up to work from Mexico City. It’ll be a little weird because of time differences and all that, but it will work.” 

Arya swore she could feel a physical weight lift off her shoulders at that. Sure, she had signed up for it, but that didn’t mean she was excited to be away from Gendry for months at a time. Knowing that he’d be with her made the daunting assignment feel more like an adventure.

She leaned over to kiss him, nearly giving in to the desire to be naked again. “Thank you. I know this is a lot to deal with on such short notice.”

“No, you were right last night. I knew what I was signing up for from day one. I’m sorry I wasn’t more supportive.”  
  
Arya cut him off with another kiss. “I think it all worked out for the best, don’t you?”

“Yeah. It did.”

“Are you ready for this?” Arya asked once they had both managed their bedhead and rubbed the sleep from their eyes. 

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Her father picked up the video call almost immediately and Arya figured he had probably been using the phone to check his email. It looked like he was working from home for the morning, not interested in battling morning traffic if he didn’t need to. “Hi sweetheart! How’s the vacation?”

“Great! Is mom there, by chance? We wanted to talk to both of you.”

“Just a moment.” There was some movement and muffled talking as Ned walked through the house. When he righted his phone he was standing in the kitchen with Catelyn at his side. “Here she is. Now, what’s going on? Are you two alright?”  
  


“We’re fine,” Gendry assured them, though Catelyn didn’t look convinced. “Better than fine, actually.”

“We’re getting married,” Arya said, holding her ring up to the camera.

Her father congratulated them both, saying he would like to take them out for dinner when they returned to celebrate.

“Well, it took you long enough,” Catelyn said, only half joking. “I can’t believe I’ve had to wait this long to finally be able to plan a wedding for you.”

Arya gave Gendry an amused look before she dropped the second bombshell on them. “Actually, Sansa has already taken the reins on that. It sounds like all you guys have to do is pack your bags and make sure you don’t miss your flight.”

Her parents shared a confused look, though Ned was the first to speak up. “What do you mean? Are you having a destination wedding?”

  
  
“Sort of, I guess. We’re… well, we decided to have the wedding here, on Friday.”

“Oh dear Lord, she’s pregnant,” Catelyn breathed, clutching at a string of non-existent pearls. 

Arya fought back the urge to roll her eyes as Gendry tried to clear things up. “That’s not it at all, Mrs. Stark. Arya has been offered an opportunity in Mexico after we get back and we need to be married before she leaves. I emailed my boss last night to explain the situation and he said he’d be happy to let me work out of our branch in Mexico City so Arya and I can stay together while she’s on assignment.”

“I double checked the employee handbook and they only make exceptions for married couples, so the sooner the better,” Arya added.

“So you’re not pregnant?”

  
  
“Don’t sound so disappointed, Mom. I’m sure someone else will start popping out kids for you in no time.”

  
  
She could swear she saw her father stifle a laugh behind his wife’s head, though he turned it into a cough. 

“Bran is going to send you guys flight information so you can get out here in time for the wedding. Dad, can you take the day off tomorrow?”

“For my little girl’s wedding? Of course! I’ll call the office and have them clear my schedule.”

Arya and Gendry made their excuses, then signed off, promising to tell them everything once they arrived in Las Vegas. 

Gendry’s family was much easier to enthuse and less suspicious of their motives. Shireen looked like she was going to short circuit when they told her about their impending wedding. She and Gendry gave them the same explanation that her parents had received before excusing themselves to finish up their calls so they could get ready for the day. 

Bella had been absolutely thrilled and agreed to get out to Las Vegas as soon as possible. Gendry had even sent a text to Edric, who offered his congratulations though he had declined to attend. They were on better terms now than they had been five years ago, but Arya wasn’t surprised, given that he had also missed Mya’s wedding the previous month. She wondered if he would always keep his half siblings at arm’s length, or if their insistence on attempting to include him would eventually pay off.

By the time they had finished up all of their calls, it was well past time to get up and get ready for the day. They shared a shower, though it was disappointingly uneventful thanks to their time constraints. 

“I want you naked the second we get back tonight,” she said, tying her shoes up.

“I thought we were supposed to save that for the wedding night,” he teased.

“It’s for science.”

“Oh? This’ll be good.”  
  


“Okay, so you know how we’ve had dating sex like a million times?”

  
  
“That’s a conservative estimate, but yes.”

“Well, we’ve only had engaged sex like three times, and tomorrow night we’ll be having married sex, so we need to have as much sex as possible tonight so that I can definitively rank them once we’re married. We had dating sex for five years, but we’re only going to have two days for engaged sex and I need a need a good sample size in order to even try to compare them fairly.”

“Well, if it’s for the sake of science…”

Arya smiled and leaned up for a kiss. “I knew you’d help me out.”

* * *

  
  


It was easy enough to spot their group as they entered the restaurant for breakfast. Bran had his tablet propped up against the table, typing away at the screen while Sansa wrote furiously in the notebook in front of her. She seemed to be doling out orders while everyone else perused their menus. 

“... not one of those guys that dresses up like Elvis, an _ actual _ officiant,” she said, pointing the end of her pen at Robb.

“No professional cosplayers. Got it.”

There were two empty seats along the far side of the table, between Ygritte and Bran, who had pulled his wheelchair up at the end of the long table so that his service dog had room to lie down. The shepherd mix, who Bran had named Winter, gave them a cursory glance as they sat down then continued on as if they weren’t there at all. Summer had officially retired a few months prior and was content to simply be a family pet. 

“Here,” Ygritte said, pushing a pot of coffee towards them. “Apparently the crepes here are to die for.”

Sansa carried on at the head of the table, assigning Theon to book a restaurant for after the ceremony. “I don’t care who you have to bribe, or whose name you have to drop, just make it happen. Jeyne, obviously you’ll be in charge of decorations. Ygritte and Margaery, you’ll be joining me and Arya for dress shopping after dinner tonight. I made an appointment at eight.”

Arya finished pouring herself a cup of coffee. “What’s wrong with the dress I wore last night?”

Sansa narrowed her eyes at her sister. “You are _ not _ wearing black to your wedding. We’ll find something that you like, I promise.”

“Fine,” Arya conceded. “But I’m not wearing heels.”

“Fair enough. Jojen, you’ll be in charge of flowers. I think all we really need is a nice bouquet for Arya to carry when she’s walking down the aisle and a little boutonniere for Gendry.”

“You know I’m a botanist, not a florist, right?” Jojen said.

“Of course, but you’re still my number one draft pick for this. I trust your eye.”

“Did you just make a sports reference?” Robb feigned shock and Sansa stuck her tongue out at him. “Real mature, Sans.”

They were interrupted by the arrival of their waitress, who quickly took their orders and promised to be back with more coffee. When she was gone again Sansa returned to her checklist.

“Bran, how are flights coming along?”

“Good. I’ve arranged it so that everyone will arrive within an hour of each other tomorrow morning.”

“Robb and I can pick them up from the airport,” Margaery offered.

“Perfect!” Sansa scribbled in her notebook again. 

“Jon, you’re in charge of taking Gendry to get a suit. Black or grey please, not blue.”

“Sans, it really doesn’t need to be that fancy,” Arya insisted. “I’m sure you all have things you’d rather be doing.” 

“Stop it. When I got married, you did everything I asked and more. You went dress shopping, you planned my bridal shower _ and _ my bachelorette party, and you even kept Aunt Lysa away from me at the reception. This is the least I can do for you. So _ please _ let me do it.”

“Alright,” she conceded. “Just try to keep it low key.”

“Noted. Now, do you need someone to do your hair and makeup tomorrow?”  
  
“Bella offered to do it.”

Sansa checked something off her list. “I think that’s everything on our end. All you guys need to do is get a marriage license and your wedding bands.”

“We’ll do it today,” Arya said. “Are we still planning on going to the fountains after dinner tonight?”

Sansa nodded. “They do shows every half hour, so we should have plenty of time to catch one before your appointment.”

“I’ll text you the addresses of a few jewelers,” Bran said. 

Their food arrived not long after, and the crepes really were fantastic. When they had finished eating, they all went their separate ways. Sansa was intent on finding a “decent venue” for them, and dragged Sandor along with her. Arya thought maybe he was coming along for pure intimidation factor, which made her snort to herself. 

* * *

It took them three tries to find a jeweler that carried a wedding band in Arya’s size. It was a simple, thin circle of gold that sat flush with her engagement ring quite nicely. Gendry opted for a thicker black tungsten band with a gold interior and thin strip of gold showing through on the outside. When they had paid for each other’s rings, they headed to a nearby restaurant for lunch, then walked to the licensing bureau. There was a bit of a wait, but they didn’t mind. Arya got a few texts from Meera, who was taking her lunch break at the hospital, and several from Shireen, who was avoiding packing her things for school. Sansa and Bran were both keeping her updated on their progress and asking for her preferences on certain aspects of the wedding.Finally they got the ever-important piece of paper and were on their way.

“Where to now? We still have some time to shop for souvenirs if you want,” Gendry said. 

Arya came to stand in front of him, crowding him despite the heat of the mid-afternoon sun. “I think I have all the souvenirs I need,” she said, holding up her engagement ring. “Maybe we could go back to the hotel and make the most of that very big bed until dinner time?”

“Now that’s a plan I can get behind.”

“I’d prefer it if you would get behind _ me _,” she teased. 

“As soon as we get back, I will.”

“Oh no you don't. You’re following my orders this time.” And with that, she turned to head back towards the hotel.

* * *

She was being unfair, honestly. Arya was honest enough to admit that she was teasing him. She’d ordered him to strip the second they returned and not he sat naked on the bed, leaning against the headboard and growing harder by the second as he watched her take her time removing her own clothes.

“So I was thinking, we should have a ceremony at home next year. Nothing big, just something for my extended family and our friends from school,” she mused, slowly unbuttoning her shorts and letting them slip down her thighs. 

“Mhmm.” Gendry hardly seemed to be listening, just staring as she stepped out of the denim shorts. 

“We could let my mom do all the planning, too. She likes having projects and all I care about is having good food and music,” she continued, slowly peeling off the silky shirt she had been wearing and letting it drop to the floor. 

“Yeah, whatever you want.”

Arya grinned, stalking towards the bed and reaching behind herself to unclasp her bra. She watched Gendry’s hands flex as she peeled that away too, itching to touch her but knowing that he couldn’t. She’d given him strict orders to keep his hands to himself. 

“All I want right now is you inside me.” She reached down, toying with the lacy hem of her panties. “Or maybe I’ll just let you watch me while I touch myself…”

She slipped a hand beneath the fabric and sought out her clit, circling it gently a few times and reveling in the jolt of pleasure that it brought. She opened her eyes to meet his and found them completely dark, pupils blown wide and his breathing uneven. Arya brought her free hand up to cup her breast, teasing a nipple as she rubbed herself a bit harder and felt moisture cling to her fingertips. 

She let herself sigh at the sensation, eyes falling shut as she spread the moisture between her legs around. She heard Gendry groan at the sight and snapped her eyes open to meet his. “Do you want a taste?”

“Fuck yes,” he breathed.

“Manners,” she warned him.

“Yes _ please. _”

Arya withdrew her fingers and stepped closer, letting Gendry take them into his open mouth. He sucked them deeply between his parted lips and ran his tongue between them obscenely until there was nothing left for him to lap at. 

“Do you remember the rules? I don’t want to tie you up,” she said, withdrawing her fingers from his mouth and running her thumb over his lip. 

“I can’t touch you or myself,” he recited. 

“And if you do?”

“You’ll tie me up and make me watch you get off with your vibrator and not let me finish.”

“That’s right.”

  
  
And with that, she stripped away her panties, leaving herself as naked as him when she crawled onto the bed and straddled his lap. His hands fisted in the sheets when she grabbed his cock, stroking it gently before lowering herself onto it. It felt so good, though she ought to be used to it by now.

Arya lifted herself up slowly, then sank back down on him again. She repeated the action once more and began setting her pace, toying with her nipples as she rode him faster and faster. Her breasts had never been the biggest, but Gendry could never seem to get enough of them. She knew that it was pure torture for him to watch her touch herself there and not be able to do the same. 

She let the pleasure build slowly, watching Gendry the whole time as he strained to keep his composure and follow the rules. She was so close, she just needed a little more…

Her left hand trailed down her abdomen until it came to the apex of her thighs. She could feel his hard cock sliding in and out of her as she began circling her clit once more, fingers sliding over the little nub and occasionally bumping against his erection and making him grunt with the effort of keeping still. 

She was so close. Just one more pass of her fingers over her sensitized flesh and… oh_ fuck _. She tipped her head back, letting the sheer pleasure wash over her in wave after wave of bliss. She could distantly hear Gendry growling like a feral animal, using every ounce of control that he had to hold himself still, but it was hard to hear over the roaring in her ears.

She came back to herself, panting and sweating as she met Gendry’s eyes and registered the hunger there. She sank down, relaxing herself so that he was seated deep within her. “Touch me,” Arya sighed and it was like a spark ignited. 

His hands seemed to be everywhere, grabbing at her ass, squeezing her tits, gripping her hips, trailing up and down her spine. His mouth was never idle either, kissing her lips hungrily before traveling down her throat as one hand slipped into her hair and held her close. She was so lost in sensations that she didn’t even notice that he had flipped her onto her back until their hips collided violently. 

His cock hit that spot deep inside her that made her eyes roll back in her head and Arya moaned. “Fuck, right there!”

She thought for a moment that he was going to pull out of her, to tease her the way that she had teased him. Instead, he drew back until only the tip was left inside of her, then tightened his grip on her hair and slammed back into her again. His other arm wound around her waist and held her in place, leaving only a breath of space between them.

It still felt like too much.

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to watch you touch yourself like that and not fuck you into the floor?” Gendry asked, punctuating each word with a thrust.

Arya grinned up at him. “I won’t stop you.”

She loved it like this, when he lost all control. Gendry grasped her short hair in his fist until his grip toed the line between painful and heavenly. All she could do was sink her nails into his back and tighten her thighs around his hips as his thrusts grew wilder and she unraveled again. 

Gendry’s grip on her waist tightened, though Arya barely noticed it through the haze of her orgasm. He collided with that spot deep inside of her once more before she felt the familiar rush of him filling her with spurts of white-hot semen. She held herself close to him, face buried in his neck, and waited for their breathing to slow.

Gendry’s grip on her hair released and he pulled back a bit to look down at her. “How’s that for science?”

“I love you so much,” she laughed, leaning up to kiss him again.

“I love you too.” He settled down beside her and kissed her temple. “I can’t believe that we’ll be getting married about this time tomorrow.”

“You’ll officially be Mr. Arya Stark,” she teased.

“And you’ll officially be Mrs. Gendry Waters.”

Arya took a deep breath and glanced up at him. “I actually meant to talk to you about that. Would you hate it if I kept my name? It’s not that I don’t like yours or whatever, it’s just that I’ve spent so long building my career as Arya _ Stark _. I mean, it’s what’s on both of my degrees, and it’s the name on all of my published work. Plus it’ll take forever to change on all of my documents. I’d need a new passport, driver’s license, social security card, credit cards. And I don’t even know how much of that we can do from Mexico.”

“Of course I don’t mind if you keep your name. It’s hardly fair that everyone expects you to give it up. Even if you do what Margaery did and hyphenate it, you’d still have to go through all the legal bullshit of changing your documents and stuff. As long as we’re married, that’s enough for me. And when we have kids, we can just hyphenate both names.”

Arya picked her head up to get a better look at him. “_ When _ we have kids?”

  
  
She watched a blush creep across his face. “If you still want them, I mean. I’ve been thinking about it and I… I think I do. Not now, obviously. Not for a while. Someday though.”

“I do. I’d like that, someday.”

For now, she was grateful for good birth control and siblings to point the finger at when her mother’s baby rabies got out of hand. They both had so much that they wanted to do before they even thought about bringing a baby into the mix, and Arya was happy to focus on that. In the meantime, it certainly didn’t hurt to practice making one.

And practice they did.

* * *

  
  


“It’s too formal,” Ygritte said, shaking her head.

“You look beautiful,” Margaery assured her. “I just don’t think this style is showing off your best features.

Arya looked in the mirror again. The dress was cute, but not her style at all. It had a fluffy skirt that fell just above her knees and a lacy bodice with tiny sleeves. It was… not right.

“Try the one with the beading,” Sansa suggested, taking a sip of her champagne. 

Arya returned to the dressing room and let the consultant help her out of the tulle monstrosity that her sister had chosen. The next dress was longer, but significantly less voluminous, falling to the floor in a column of light fabric. The back was low-cut and accentuated with a delicate web of beadwork that spilled onto the front of the garment and the thin straps. She turned this way and that, examining the way it clung nicely to her waist and showed off just the barest hint of cleavage. The bottom of the skirt was lacy, though not in an overwhelming way, like the last one. It was a bit long, but the consultant assured her that it could be hemmed in time for the wedding the next night. 

“What do you think?” She stepped onto the pedestal and turned so that the other women could see the whole garment.

“You look amazing,” Sansa said, sounding ready to swoon.

Margaery nodded in agreement. “This is the best one by far.”

“It’s perfect,” Ygritte said. “Gendry’s jaw is gonna drop when he sees you in this.”

Arya turned to look at herself in the mirror once more. It _ was _ beautiful, and bridal without being too overt. And it was a nearly perfect fit. “You’re sure you can have it hemmed by tomorrow? That’s all it needs.” 

“Absolutely. You can pick it up first thing in the morning,” the consultant assured her. 

And that was how she bought a wedding dress less than twenty-four hours before her wedding.

* * *

  
  


Arya woke on her wedding day to the sound of her and Gendry’s phones buzzing in unison. 

“What’s going on? Aren’t we allowed to sleep in?”

“It’s the group chat,” he yawned. “Sansa is going full wedding planner on all of us.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

“She’s on her way back with your dress and Margaery says she and Robb are just waiting on Bella’s flight to get in before they head back.”

She stretched, bracing herself mentally for the chaos that was about to descend upon them before rolling out of bed. She stopped halfway to the bathroom door and tossed him a look over her bare shoulder. “I’m going to take a shower. Do you want to wash my hair?”

“Absolutely.”

* * *

  
  


Sansa insisted on separating them, banishing Gendry to Robb’s room once everyone had arrived. Bella had arrived looking flawless, despite her early morning flight, and carrying a silver case of makeup that seemed to never end. Meera looked surprisingly fresh-faced, though Arya knew she couldn’t have gotten much sleep. Mya had gone to see Gendry first, leaving her wife to follow Catelyn, Shireen, and Marya down the hall. 

Her mother made it about five seconds before bursting into tears, which Arya had not been prepared to deal with. “I can’t believe it! My little wild child is actually getting married.”

_ Thanks for the vote of confidence _, she thought somewhat sourly. Arya shot her sister a look and Sansa immediately captured their mother’s attention, enthusing her about plans for the vow renewal in New York that Arya had suggested. 

What little remained of the morning was spent ironing out dresses and discussing her hair and makeup preferences with Bella until lunch arrived. Mya arrived just as they were cleaning up and Arya was grateful that she, Bella, Gendry, and Shireen had all met up before. It would have been an incredibly uncomfortable scenario for them to meet face-to-face for the first time. 

“No offence, but the guys are having way more fun,” she said, sauntering towards her wife. “They’ve got beer, wings, and soccer.”  
  
“Throw in some girls in low-cut tops and you’ve got yourself a sports bar,” Meera said, rolling her eyes.

“Just as long as there aren’t any strippers,” Arya shrugged.

“Theon may or may not have suggested it.”

Jeyne rolled her eyes and let out a huff. “Of course he would.”

They slowly started getting ready after that, changing into their dresses and taking turns doing their makeup in the dresser mirror. Bella pulled Arya into the bathroom and started in on her hair while Shireen commandeered Arya’s camera and began snapping away.   
  
“You don’t have to do that. Why don’t you let Sansa do your hair?”   
  


“I’m capturing the moment,” she insisted.

When she was finished being done up, Arya had her sister help her into her dress and instructed Shireen to get a picture of their mother’s face when she came out of the bathroom. Sansa made a big show of opening the door wide and letting the other women gasp and fawn over her.

The next hour was a blur as everyone else finished getting ready and they headed down to the limo that Sansa had rented. Apparently the guys were already on their way to the chapel and they didn’t want to be too far behind. She’d been expecting a cheesy little place with a 1950s vibe and a neon sign, but Sansa had managed to find a cute venue that looked like a shrunken down church. 

Her father was waiting for them in the little chamber outside the main area of the chapel, ready to walk her down the aisle once everyone had finished finding their seats.

“You look beautiful,” he said, once Catelyn had closed the door behind her. “Oh Sunshine, I couldn’t be more happy for you.”

“I couldn’t be more happy for me either,” she laughed. “I know it’s not conventional, but…”

Ned reached out and took her hand, letting their matching eyes meet. “If it were conventional, it wouldn’t be you. I am so proud of you, sweetheart. And I’m so happy that you’ve found someone who loves and supports you the way you deserve. Of course nobody is good enough for my little girl, but Gendry’s better than most. And he’s so good for you.”

“He really is my best friend,” she assured him, tears pricking at the backs of her eyes. She took a deep breath and laughed as she let it out. “Bella’s going to kill me if I cry my makeup off before the ceremony.” 

Ned chuckled too. “Alright then, no more fatherly reminiscing. How about a hug instead?”

She was a grown woman, about to marry her best friend and greatest love, but she still somehow felt like a little girl when her father wrapped her up in his arms. She heard the music on the other side of the door change from generic piano music to the acoustic cover of “Stand by Me” that she had specifically requested. “I think that’s our cue,” Ned said, handing her the bouquet that Jojen had procured and resting her hand in the crook of his arm. “Are you ready?”

“You have no idea.”

The door swung open and Arya’s eyes met Gendry’s right away. The room was full of the most important people in their lives, but all she could see was him as she took the first step down the aisle. His blue eyes filled with tears at the sight of her and Arya felt her heart clench at the sight. 

She took another measured step and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was walking towards her future.


	15. Restless Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like all endings, this one is a beginning too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here it is! The final chapter. Thank you so much to everyone who's gotten to this point, whether you've been here since chapter one or you just started reading this yesterday. Comments, kudos, and general interest are the only reason that this fic made it to the finish line. A quick trigger warning for a brief mention of abortion towards the middle of this chapter, so be warned. Chapter title and lyrics by Jessie Early, and the work title and final lyrics are, of course, by the Cure. I'll be posting the mini playlist for this chapter on my tumblr ASAP for those who want to listen as they read.Thanks for sticking with me, and enjoy!

_ Holy ties bind me through and through _

_ My heart's settled down made its life with you _

_ All my days, all my days, I will love you _

_ If I had to go back to the very start _

_ I'd still give you every part of my restless heart _

  
  


The first thing Arya registered when she woke was the familiar sound of Gendry’s soft snoring coming from beside her on the mattress. 

The second thing she noticed was the churning of her stomach and the rapidly gathering saliva in her mouth. 

_ Ah fuck… _

She pushed herself to her feet, scrambling to the bathroom just in time to reacquaint herself with the previous night’s dinner. She spat the last of the bile into the toilet and stood to flush it away just as Gendry came rushing in. 

“Oh shit! Are you okay?”

Arya nodded, already seeking out the mouthwash or her toothbrush in the unfamiliar drawers nearby. “This is what I get for eating takeout three nights in a row.”

“Do you think it was the chicken?”

“Probably. It was the only thing I ate that you didn’t,” she said, finally tracking down her toothbrush in the drawer between the two sinks. As far as food poisoning went, it wasn’t the worst case she’d had by a long shot. In fact, she already felt leagues better than she had a few minutes ago.

Gendry kissed her head. “I’m sorry. On the bright side, the truck comes this afternoon.”

It was what they’d been waiting for since they’d arrived in Chicago earlier in the week to pick up the keys from the contractor and finish all of the paperwork regarding the house.

_ Their house _. They’d actually bought a house. And after a few minor upgrades and some cosmetic changes, they were finally moved in.

Well, they were sort of moved in. 

Okay, they had a mattress and a few changes of clothes each, but once the truck from New York arrived they would have two mostly furnished rooms and a functioning kitchen. For now it was campouts on the bedroom floor and takeout for nearly every meal.

“We still need to measure for the sofa and my desk,” she reminded him through a mouthful of foamy toothpaste.

“Huh?”

She rinsed her mouth out and repeated what she had said.

“Oh, right. We can do that before we leave. What else do we need?”

In short, a lot. 

In the grand scheme of things, the house wasn’t all that big. At just a hair over 1,800 square feet, it was smaller than her parents’ guest house by a fair margin. But, it _ was _ an awful lot for just two people, and after so many years of one bedroom apartments it felt absolutely cavernous. They’d ended up selling or donating a lot of the furniture from their last apartment to save themselves the trouble of having it shipped, so the truck only contained the bedroom set they had purchased the previous year, clothes, books, kitchen utensils, and other small items in boxes.

It wasn’t nearly enough to fill the house, but it meant they wouldn’t have to sleep on a mattress on the floor anymore, and they could start cooking their own food. No more sketchy chicken was something she could definitely get behind. 

“We should make a list once we’re done unpacking the truck. And don't forget that my mom is also bringing all of our wedding presents when she and my dad come to visit.”  
  
Their family and friends had been exceptionally generous when they had renewed their vows, and Arya had ended up being very grateful that Sansa had insisted that she make a wedding registry. She hadn’t actually expected anyone to buy them the stuff she had added to it, and yet most of it had appeared anyway. Still, they hadn’t exactly had anywhere to put a stand mixer and a pressure cooker in their one bedroom apartment, much less a twenty piece Morrocan inspired dinnerware set. Luckily, her parents had agreed to hold on to a lot of the non-essential items until they had a bigger place.

And now, almost two years later, they finally did. 

They decided to take the measurements they needed, go grab breakfast, and then browse a nearby furniture store for some ideas. She was feeling much better by the time they made it to the coffee shop they had settled on and ordered a small coffee and a muffin. She must have underestimated her food poisoning though, because the nausea returned as they were browsing area rugs.

“Are you alright? You look pale,” Gendry said, placing a gentle hand on her back. 

Arya took deep breaths through her mouth, only nodding when she was sure that the threat of vomiting had passed. 

Her husband wasn’t buying it though. “Look, why don’t we just call it a day and head home? We can always just get some inspiration from the internet.”

Usually she would power through, but the last few weeks had exhausted her. Between the anticipation of starting her new freelance career, the stress of packing and moving, and all the emotions that had been churned up by the circumstances, no amount of sleep seemed to feel sufficient. Curling up with Gendry and her laptop sounded entirely too wonderful to turn down. 

She nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good.” 

They made it about thirty minutes before Arya was nodding off with her head on Gendry’s chest. When she woke again, she was practically laying across his body. Gendry didn’t seem to mind much; he had his phone in one hand and was stroking her hair with the other. “Hey, how do you feel?”

“Alright,” she said with a shrug. “What time is it?”

  
“Close to noon. Do you feel like eating lunch?”

_ Not particularly _, she thought. It was going to be a long day though, and she was going to need more than a cranberry muffin to get her through. 

They decided that Gendry would stay at the house in case the movers showed up early and Arya would walk to the deli a few blocks away. It was a cute place that they’d found while exploring the neighborhood a few days ago, nestled in the back of a convenience store. She placed her order at the counter, then went to stroll through the aisles as she waited for her name to be called. 

Arya grabbed two drinks from the refrigerators against the far wall, then went to look for hair elastics. Her hair hadn’t had more than a trim since the wedding and it was longer than it had been in ages, falling around her shoulders and tangling in the spring breeze when she left it down. She found a pack of plain black ones between the toothpaste and condoms and was about to go check out when something on the top shelf caught her eye.

_ You're being paranoid _ , she told herself, staring down the pregnancy test. _ You’re on the pill. _

It had been her ObGyn’s idea to switch her birth control when Arya had mentioned that she and Gendry were talking about having a baby in the next few years. The point had been to get her back onto a regular cycle, one she hadn’t had while using the implant, but she wasn’t always the best at remembering the pills. Sure she took them a couple of hours late sometimes, but it wasn’t _ that _ big of a deal, right? She’d only completely forgotten them a couple of times, and that hadn’t happened in weeks.

No, she was being paranoid. 

She grabbed the test anyway and brought her items to the young woman at the register. At the last minute she added a pack of gum, hoping the mint flavoring would help stave off any nausea she felt later in the day, then paid for her things and went to pick up her food from the deli.

* * *

Gendry was in the bathroom when she got home, thank goodness, so she set the food down on the kitchen island and ran upstairs with her shopping bag. There were three bedrooms upstairs, the smallest of which had been designated as her office. She went for the room across from it and ducked into the small bathroom next to the closet. They didn’t have any plans for that particular room yet, so Gendry wasn’t likely to come looking for anything in there. 

It wasn’t that she was trying to hide anything from him. She and Gendry did _ not _ lie to each other. She just didn’t want to make a fuss out of nothing and she knew that no matter what the result ended up being, there were bound to be a lot of emotions involved. It was better to just take the test and mention it to him later. They would probably even get a bit of a laugh out of her paranoia. 

She stashed the little cardboard box under the sink and headed back downstairs just as Gendry came out of their bedroom. She decided that she would wait until he was busy, then go upstairs, take the test, and set her mind at ease. It was that simple.

The truck arrived just as they were arguing over whether salt and vinegar chips were better than barbecue, leaning against the counter and finishing off the last of their food.

“Hey,” Gendry said, grabbing her hand as she made to go open the front door. “Why don’t you take it easy today? I’ll help them bring stuff in and you can… coordinate.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why? Because I’m too delicate and small to help you carry in the dresser?”  
  
“No, because you puked your guts out this morning and I can tell you’re not at full strength right now. Nobody thinks you’re weak, I just want to make sure we’re all being safe. Besides, you’re the one who knows where everything belongs.”

She wanted to protest, but he made a good point. If she suddenly felt sick while carrying something heavy she could hurt herself, break something, or even accidentally injure someone else. “Fine,” she sighed.

The boxes were towards the back of the truck, meaning they were the first to come into the house, followed by the heavy furniture. Arya was mostly just in charge of deciding where to put the boxes based on their labels and making sure nobody dented the walls as they were bringing in the bed frame. Between Gendry and the two guys from the moving company, they made pretty quick work of emptying the vehicle.

Arya made it her first order of business to get the kitchen sorted while Gendry tackled their closet. She turned a podcast on, carefully unwrapped their dishes and stacked them in a cupboard near the sink. Pots, pans, and cookie sheets went near the oven, silverware went in a drawer beneath the plates, and on it went. She had to strategize a bit, knowing that many of their wedding gifts were kitchen gadgets or nice serveware. There was only a small box of miscellaneous things like oven mitts and spatulas by the time Gendry came out of their room.

He walked up behind her without a word, holding her so that her chest pressed against her back and he could watch over her shoulder as she sorted through the utensils in the box. “Feeling better?” 

She nodded. “Yeah. I haven’t felt sick since this morning. I think it ran its course.”

“Good.” He dropped a kiss to her cheek and Arya grinned despite herself. “I’m going to go pick up some groceries. Do you want to come?”

“I think I’d like to stay here and finish this up. But, I would kill for some fruit bars if you see them at the store,” she said, the craving only intensifying as she thought about it.

“Alright, I’ll see if they have mango. Text me if you think of anything else, okay?”

He grabbed his wallet and keys and headed out the back door. She watched him cross the yard to the garage and disappear inside. She kept sorting through the box until she heard his car take off down the alley, then abandoned the task. It took a surprising amount of control to not sprint up the stairs and rip the pregnancy test out of its packaging.

It always seemed to take ages to get a result in the movies, but Arya found that it wasn’t the case. By the time she finished cleaning up and flushed the toilet the little plastic stick was already displaying a bright pink line. By the time she finished washing her hands, a second one had joined it.

There was no mistaking the result. They’d even printed examples right on the test. One line meant it was negative, two lines meant it was positive. 

And her two lines were clear as day.

She stared at the little piece of plastic for a moment, almost willing it to change somehow. How could she have messed up this badly? It was one stupid little daily pill and she had somehow fucked it up.

Arya left the test on the counter and went back downstairs to finish off the kitchen with trembling hands. Her gut twisted in a way that had nothing to do with the apparent morning sickness that she’d experienced earlier. It felt like her heart and her mind were at war with one another.

On the one hand, she was upset with herself for messing up to such an insane degree. They had made careful plans before moving and she had completely messed them up. She was supposed to establish her new career path while Gendry got used to his more senior role at Stormbreaker’s Chicago office. They were supposed to have a couple of years to settle in, travel, and make friends before they even started trying for a baby. Now they were both brand new to their positions, unfamiliar with the area, almost completely alone, and she was fucking pregnant.

Still, it wasn’t like they didn’t want kids at all. It was just a matter of timing. She realized that amidst the anxiety and uncertainty, there was a slowly growing flicker of joy. Despite everything, this was something that they both wanted. Her fear couldn’t seem to overshadow the absolute astonishment that flooded her when she realized that there was another life growing inside her, one she and Gendry had made. 

She couldn’t be sure how he’d react, but she had to figure out a way to tell Gendry. Would he be happy? Would he be upset with her?

She found any excuse that she could to keep herself busy until he returned with a box of mango fruit bars and the ingredients for turkey tacos. As per their usual routine, Arya took charge of cooking while Gendry put away the rest of the groceries in the pantry. 

“I think I know the first thing we can add to our list of furniture to buy,” he said, leaning against the island as they enjoyed their first bites of food.

“Do share,” she said, trying not to project her anxiety through her voice. She should have told him already, but it didn’t feel like the sort of thing you just announced over tacos.

“Bar stools. And maybe a dining table if we’re feeling fancy.”

“Alright, but it has to go over there,” she said, motioning with her tortilla to the small open area off to the side of the kitchen. “I have dibs on this area over here.”

Gendry looked to the open swath of floor in front of them. “And what exactly are you planning to do with it?”

“I need it for your birthday present.”

  
  
“What are you getting me, a pony?”

“You wish. If you must know, I ordered an air hockey table. Now that you’re going to be an old man, I have a way better shot at beating you.”

“You little brat,” he teased, prodding her in the side with his finger. “I’m turning thirty not ninety. I’ll still kick your ass, then spank it for good measure.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?”

The look he gave her said that it was definitely the latter. 

When they had finished cleaning up dinner Arya dug up a notebook and pen and the two of them began walking through the house to determine what they still needed. 

_ Bedroom _

  * _Area rug_
  * Bedside lamps (2)
  * Mirror

_ Living Room _

  * _Sofa_
  * Bookshelves (2)
  * Area rug
  * Coffee table
  * Floor lamp

_ Kitchen _

  * _Bar stools (3)_
  * <strike>Step stool</strike> Fuck off Gendry
  * Table
  * Chairs (4)

_ Laundry Room _

  * _Wall-mounted shelves_

_ Powder Room _

  * _Medicine cabinet_

_ Office _

  * _Desk_
  * Office chair
  * Bookshelf
  * File storage

“Have we decided what to do with this one? It’s a good size,” Gendry said, leading her to the bedroom at the front of the house and settling his chin on her shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her waist.. 

“I was thinking we could use it as a guest room. My parents will be here for your birthday next month, and Davos and Marya want to come with Shireen this summer. It would be nice if they could stay here instead of a hotel.”

“Don’t you think the other room makes more sense? I know it’s a little smaller, but the bathroom is attached and the closet is bigger.”

“The bathroom across the hall is bigger,” she reminded him, “and it’s not like they’ll have to share it with anyone unless I’m in my office. And they won’t need a ton of storage space if they’re only visiting. The closet in here and a dresser should be more than enough.”

Genrdy thought about it for a moment before conceding. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Arya got to work writing down everything they would need for a nice guest room.

“What about the last bedroom? I guess we could just leave it alone for now,” he said.

_ It’s now or never _, Arya told herself. “Actually, I had a few ideas for that room.”

“Did you now?”

  
  
“I did.” She extracted herself from his arms and led him across the small landing to the final bedroom. The bathroom door drew her eye as soon as they entered, but only because she knew the pregnancy test was still sitting on the counter.

“Alright, tell me about your schemes and we can add what you need to the list,” he grinned, taking the notebook from her hand and preparing to copy down what she mentioned.

She steadied her nerves and motioned to the wall on their left. “Well, I thought we could get a dresser to go over here, just for some more storage. And we could put a chair in the corner.”

Gendry nodded, scribbling down the additions in his familiar chicken scratch.

Arya turned to the opposite wall and indicated the space between the bathroom and closet doors. “And I think the crib would fit here. We could put some art over it to add some more color.”

Like most of the house, this room was painted a warm grey with stark white ceilings and charcoal trim. It was a modern look, but this room was going to need more personality.

Gendry’s hand stilled over the notebook as his eyes snapped up to meet hers. “What?”

“I was thinking green or blue? Something gender neutral.”

“Yeah, no, rewind for a minute. What about a crib?”

She shrugged, trying to keep her demeanor casual. “Well, yeah. The baby’s gotta have somewhere to sleep.”

His eyes grey wider, flitting from her face to her stomach, then back up to her face again. “Are you… We’re having… You’re pregnant?”

She nodded slowly, biting her lip to quell her nerves. “Are you mad? I know the timing is terrible and I should have been more careful, but I know you’d be a great dad and we’re n-”

Her rambling was cut off by Gendry’s lips colliding with hers as the pen and notebook fell from his hands to the floor. One arm wrapped around her, drawing her close as his other hand cradled the back of her head. Arya finally felt herself relax as she sunk into the kiss, wrapping her arms around her husband’s neck.

“I take it you’re not mad then?”

“Of course I’m not mad. How could you even think that? You didn’t exactly get into this situation on your own.”

  
  
“I guess, but I should’ve been more careful about taking my birth control,” she said guiltily.

“Arya, look at me.” He waited until her eyes were on his own before continuing. “I know that we were planning to wait, but this is a good thing. We both wanted this, right? So what if it came a little early? Are you upset about it? Do you… do you want to terminate the pregnancy?”

“No, not at all! I want this. It’s just that we’re not even settled in yet and we were going to travel more first and…”

He silenced her with another kiss. “We’ll figure it out, okay? It’s not like they’re going to be here tomorrow. We’ve got a few months, right? And we don’t have to stop everything for the next eighteen years. We can travel more once they’re older. We could even get one of those baby backpacks for hiking.”

“That _ would _ be pretty cute.”

“Everything our kid does will be cute, I’m sure.” He kissed her forehead, then pulled her closer. “Whatever happens, we’re going to be fine.”

  
  
Arya grinned at that, despite herself. “Who are you and what have you done with my husband?”

“I figured only one of us should panic at a time and I’m saving my turn for the delivery room.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I love you, stupid.”

He kissed her again, slow and sweet and full of promises, then rested his forehead against hers. “I love you too. And I can’t wait to raise this baby with you.”

_ Our baby _, she thought, still trying to fully grasp the idea. 

* * *

Arya hung the final frame, aligning it just so before stepping back to admire her work. The wall along the staircase had been a blank slate when they arrived and Arya had been excited to turn it into her own version of her father’s shrine. The centerpiece was a picture of her and Gendry at their vow renewal, standing under the massive oak tree in the backyard of Winterfell surrounded by lanterns and fairy lights. It was one of her favorites and she’d had her dad replace her horrible senior portrait with a copy of that photo instead.

There was a frame next to it that held three photos with a mat around them, which she was particularly fond of. The one on the left was the one that Shireen had taken of Gendry kissing her on his graduation day all those years ago. The middle was of the two of them sporting matching caps and gowns the year that Arya had finished her undergrad program and Gendry had completed grad school. The one on the right was from her graduation from NYU, taken just as Gendry planted a kiss on her cheek.

Jon had taken the next one just a few hours after his daughter had been born. In it, she and Gendry sat together in Ygritte’s hospital room fawning over their brand new niece. That was the day that her brother had asked them to be Hazel’s godparents. Arya had nearly made an appointment with her ObGyn on the spot when she had watched Gendry eagerly hold the newborn and rock her while she fussed. Of course, the sudden and overwhelming urge to procreate had worn off somewhere between Hazel dirtying her diaper and Ygritte complaining about how much her boobs hurt and Arya’s implant had remained intact for the time being.

There was a large photo of Nymeria running through the snow at Winterfell and looking more wolf than dog. Looking at it made Arya’s heart clench with grief, though they’d been forced to say goodbye to her almost two years ago. She’d had a good life with them, even when she couldn’t get around as well anymore, and lived to be twelve years old. The vet had told her that it was a long life for a dog of her size, but Arya knew it would be a while before she was ready to adopt another animal.

There was a snapshot of Sansa’s family at the courthouse on the day that their kids’ adoptions had been finalized. It had been heart wrenching to watch her sister go through one disappointment after another when it had come to starting her own family. They’d been seriously considering IVF treatments when she and Gendry came by for a visit and Gendry and Sandor began comparing notes on their experiences in foster care and Arya had practically watched the light bulb go off over her sister’s head.

She’d decided to put that one towards the top left of the grouping, across from a similarly sized shot of Robb and Margaery holding Alex and Libby in their christening gowns. Even the twins were absurdly photogenic, despite being only a few weeks old. It was unfair, really.

There was one that Theon had sent her of him and Jeyne on the beach with Declan, swinging the little boy between them as they stood on the shoreline. Despite everything he had been through, fatherhood seemed to suit Theon. Plus it had apparently inspired him to finally propose to Jeyne, which Arya thought didn’t hurt. They’d gotten married in New York the previous fall with Declan as their ring bearer.

The next was of Rickon and Shireen at his university graduation. He had his arm over her shoulder and hers was around his waist in a friendly sort of pose. She’d noticed how well they’d gotten along at dinner after her and Gendry’s wedding, and again at their vow renewal, so she’d encouraged Shireen to reach out to him when she got into her Master’s program at U of M. Hilariously, she had ended up being his TA during the fall semester, helping out with the English class that he had been putting off since freshman year. They had been nothing more than friends the day that the picture was taken, but Arya couldn’t help but wonder if there was something more there. She supposed it didn’t matter now. Shireen was still in Michigan finishing her degree and Rickon was back in New York, trying to help his fledgling professional career take off. 

She grinned at the one of her, Bran, Jojen, and Winter all dressed up for one of the Stark Foundation’s more recent fundraising galas. Arya’s deep blue skirt was sweeping the floor as she stood behind Bran, and Winter had even sported a bow tie for the occasion. It was the first time her little brother had spoken at one of Catelyn’s fundraising events, and he’d hardly left a single dry eye by the end of his speech. He’d been so distant after the accident - so closed off - that there had been a time where she had feared losing the brother that she loved. It certainly wasn’t the case anymore. 

The photo prompted her to reach for her phone and shoot her brother a quick text. She knew he was drowning in work from his PhD program, but she also knew that he could handle it. Still, a little extra encouragement never hurt anyone, right?

Every photo on the wall depicted a precious memory. Her, Gendry, Mya, and Meera at the top of one of the hiking trails near their house in Colorado with River sitting in front of them wagging his tail. Davos, Marya, Ned, and Catelyn all posing together at the vow renewal. Gendry dancing with Shireen while Arya and her father swayed together behind them that same night. 

One of the more recent snapshots showed Gendry, Bella, Mya and Edric seated together at the reception of Renley’s wedding. It had been a breakthrough night for the siblings and Arya hoped that things with Gendry’s brother would keep improving now that the two lived in the same city. If nothing else, it would be nice for the baby to have a little bit of family nearby. 

Gendry’s voice cut through her thoughts. “Are you ready? I can pull the car up for you if you want.”

“I’m perfectly capable of walking to the car,” she reminded him. “I just need my shoes.”

He rounded the corner with her tennis shoes in hand and offered them to her with an exaggerated bow. “Your slippers, m’lady.”

“Fuck off,” she laughed, sliding her feet into the shoes. “ What do you think of the wall?”

“It looks great. You know, by this time next year, there’ll be pictures of our kid up there.”

“Speaking of which, we need to get going. You’ve got everything?”

He nodded and the two set off for the car. 

“You don’t need copies of your medical records or anything? I read online that your ObGyn needs to know about your general health so that they can assess how risky your pregnancy will be.”  
  
“I called my old doctors in New York and had them transfer everything this morning,” she assured him. “Any other helpful hints from your friends in the pregnancy forums?”

“You can tease me all you want, I don’t care,” he said stubbornly, stopping at a red light and glancing over at her. “That’s my kid in there. I just want the best for her.”

Arya arched an eyebrow at him. “_ Her _?”

“Or him,” he added, blushing at the slip-up. 

It seemed like a mean thing to tease him about, so Arya let the subject be. She didn’t have a preference one way or the other if they had a girl or a boy, just as long as the little one was healthy and safe. She intended to raise them the same either way, but she wouldn’t fault Gendry for his inadvertent bias. More likely than not, it was because he was so used to Hazel and all her little girl charms. He was thoroughly wrapped around their goddaughter’s finger, so it was no surprise that he was hoping for a daughter of his own. 

“So I was thinking about the house,” she said, changing the subject in order to fill the silence.

“Yeah?” 

“I was looking at the list we made and… would you hate it if we hired someone? My parents are coming to visit in less than a month and between the baby and work, I just don’t know if we’ll be able to pull it all together in time.”

“Anything that takes some stress off of you is fine by me.”

“_ Anything _?”

“Anything.”

“Bubble baths?”

“It would be a shame to not use that fancy tub we paid so much for.”

“Back rubs?”

“Of course.”

“Morning sex every day?”

  
  
“Before or after you puke?”

“I’m serious! Apparently a lot of women get really horny in the second trimester.”

“Anything to make you feel better.”

“You’re such a good husband.”

“I’m all about making sacrifices,” he smirked. “I’ll text Jeyne later and see if she can recommend any interior designers out here.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

“And have you been having any morning sickness?”

“You mean all day every day sickness? Yes. It wasn’t super noticeable until a few days ago though,” Arya said.

Dr. Smallwood typed something into her little laptop. “We’ll keep an eye on it for now, but I’d like to keep you off of anti-nausea medication if I can.”

It was only her first appointment, but Arya could tell that she was going to like her new ObGyn. Dr. Smallwood had a quiet confidence in her that set Arya at ease, and she had patiently answered Gendry’s many questions and praised him for his involvement. It certainly eased her concerns about the pregnancy, though nothing could eliminate them entirely.

The doctor had her lay on her back for the ultrasound and applied a bit of gel to her abdomen. Arya could’ve sworn she caught the older woman smiling to herself when she glimpsed Arya and Gendry’s intertwined hands, then a whooshing sound filled the room as she began moving the transducer around. 

“If you’re as far along as I think, we should be able to pick up the heartbeat around here… there it is! Do you hear that?”

“It’s so fast,” Gendry said, eyebrows drawing together in concern. “Is something wrong?”

“Not at all. The average fetal heart rate is about twice as fast as an adult’s, so that’s perfectly normal. If you look here,” she turned the screen a bit and pointed at a little white bean-shaped splotch, “you can see the baby. There’s the head, and the legs are down there.”

Dr. Smallwood said that the image was good and estimated Arya’s due date to be late November. When they were done, she printed out a few copies of the ultrasound photo for them while Arya got cleaned up. She was strictly banned from MMA until she delivered and received a list of what to avoid, which vitamins to take, and what milestones to expect.

“How soon can we find out if it’s a boy or girl?” Gendry asked.

“Not until about halfway through the second trimester, though I’d try to go overboard with the pink or blue if I were you. Even with modern technology, there can still be surprises.”

  
  
“He already thinks it’s a girl,” Arya said, pulling her shirt back down.

“Really? Well, there are lots of old wives’ tales you could go by if you want to guess, but I wouldn’t put too much stock in them,” Dr. Smallwood laughed. The receptionist will give you my card and access to the patient portal. Feel free to reach out if you have more questions.”

“Oh, I’m sure we will,” Arya said, giving Gendry a pointed look. 

Her husband blushed, but didn’t deny it.

* * *

Gendry’s thirtieth birthday arrived suddenly and Arya wanted to do everything she could to make it extra special. 

She woke up early on the morning of the seventeenth to make him bacon and waffles for breakfast, then sat down on the couch with her laptop after he had left for work. The interior designer that they’d hired had managed to pull the house together just in time for Arya’s parents to visit and the results were perfect. The only thing that was missing was the long-awaited air hockey table, which arrived late in the morning. She was relieved that it fit perfectly in the space they’d set aside between the kitchen and living room. 

After a quick lunch she distracted herself by rearranging the memory boxes on the bookshelves flanking the fireplace. She didn’t have the patience for scrapbooking, but the little wooden boxes were a nice way to store photos, maps, and little trinkets from their travels. Satisfied that everything was where she wanted it, she went upstairs to make sure everything was in place for her parents’ arrival the next day.

She tidied up her office, made sure the guest room was ready, then wandered into the nursery just because she wanted to. She looked around at the newly furnished space, taking in the light wood furniture and the splashes of green and blue before directing her next words towards the little bump that had started to emerge at her midsection. “What do you think, little one? Do you like your room?”

There was, unsurprisingly, no answer. Arya carried on anyway. “I think it looks nice in here. Daddy and I are gonna show this place to your grandparents tomorrow, so don’t be surprised if there’s a bunch of screaming. Your Nana’s probably going to lose it.”

She made sure to shut the door behind her, then headed back downstairs. By the time Gendry got home, she was halfway through cooking his favorite dinner. It wasn’t the flashiest, most exciting birthday, but Gendry had made it clear that he wanted to keep things low-key. Besides, he seemed plenty excited about the air hockey table and changing into sweatpants.

Their Friday night routine had been altered slightly now that Arya couldn’t drink, but a few incredibly competitive rounds of air hockey after dinner had been a pretty good substitute. She was looking for something to watch when he disappeared into their bedroom. 

Arya didn’t think much of it, just assumed that he’d gotten another call from one of their family members. She was halfway through the new releases section when he returned and scooped her up off the sofa.

“Gendry! What are you doing?”

“I have something for you,” he said, carrying her through their bedroom and into the adjoining bathroom. She realized what he meant when she smelled her favorite bath salts and saw steam rising from the bathtub. 

He set her down on the floor and helped her out of her clothes, pausing to kiss her belly when her shirt fell to the floor.

“Not that I’m complaining, but I thought _ I _ was supposed to be spoiling _ you _ today,” Arya said, slowly lowering herself into the tub. The water smelled heavenly and the warmth practically melted the tension away from her muscles.

“Maybe all I want for my birthday is to see my wife naked,” he teased, eyes roving her figure beneath the rippling water. No matter how long they were together, the way he looked at her never failed to make her blood sing in anticipation.

“Or you just knew that baths make me horny and wanted to get me in the mood for one last fuck before my parents come tomorrow.” 

She’d gotten a text from them an hour ago that they had stopped for the night in Ohio and would continue their road trip in the morning.

“I would never do such a thing,” Gendry said, feigning righteous indignation.

“So then I assume you don’t want to join me?”

“I never said that.”

He made quick work of removing his shirt and sweats, then his socks and boxers, throwing them all in a careless heap on the tile floor. She shifted forward in the tub, letting him slip in behind her. Once he was settled she leaned back again so that her back was flush against his chest and her head rested comfortably against his shoulder. 

“I have something to confess,” he said and his voice carried through his body.

“Hmm?”

“I sort of spilled the beans while I was on the phone with Shireen today.”

“She knows about the baby?”

“It just kind of slipped out,” he admitted.

“Well, did she say anything? Is she excited?”

“I think she might have cried. They were definitely happy tears though!”

“Good! I’m glad that she’s excited.”  
  
Gendry caressed her arm in a thoroughly distracting way and Arya nearly missed his next question. “You’re not mad that she found out before your parents?” 

“Not at all. This’ll be her first niece or nephew. My parents already have seven grandkids. Not that they won’t be excited, it’s just not quite as new for them, you know?”

Gendry hummed in agreement, leaning down to trail kisses over the curve of her neck.

“I was actually thinking that we could make her the baby’s godmother, if that’s alright with you?”

Her husband stilled for a moment, then wrapped his arms around her tightly. “She would _ love _ that. Thank you.”

They lapsed into silence for a while, just enjoying the warmth of the water and the way they fit together.

“You know what I was thinking about today?”

Arya turned her head to look up at him. “What?”

“That first night in your apartment when you climbed onto my lap and kissed me like both of our lives depended on it. I think that was the moment you had me.”

“Really? That was it?”

“Yeah. I knew I didn’t want to kiss anyone else ever again after that.”

“Gendry?”

“Yeah?”

“Take me to bed.”

“As m’lday commands.”

They hardly bothered to dry off, just ran towels over each other for a moment before tumbling into the bedroom in a flurry of kisses and wandering hands. 

“How do you want it?” Gendry asked, easing her down onto the mattress.

“Just like that night,” she breathed. 

A nearly feral grin crossed his face as he ran his hands over her thighs. “I can do that.”

Before she could register what was happening, he grabbed her behind the knees and yanked her towards the end of the bed. She was about to ask what he was doing when she remembered his eyes flashing up to her face as he knelt on the floor of her kitchen. _ Oh, he meant the whole night. _

The pace of her heartbeat picked up as he kissed the inside of her ankle, then traced his way up her leg with his lips. It was the sweetest torture waiting for him to make his way to her center as he kissed and nipped at her skin.

“Gendry, don’t tease.”

“But you’re so pretty when you’re desperate.”

“You’re a jacka- ahhh. Fuck, that’s good,” she murmered, relishing in the feeling of his tongue against her folds. He held her thighs in place as his tongue circled her clit and teased her into a frenzy. The heat that had been simmering in her body before erupted into a full-blown boil as she ground herself against his face, blindly chasing the orgasm that she knew was just out of reach. 

She reached down to run a hand through his hair just as he pushed two fingers inside of her and her world went white with pleasure. She knew she had to be gripping his hair too tightly, but she couldn’t make herself stop when every flick of his tongue and pump of his fingers was prolonging her ecstacy. 

“Fuck, you’re so sensitive,” he mumbled, kissing her hip as she basked in the afterglow.

Arya didn’t know what to say to that, so she led him up the bed by his hair until his face was close enough to kiss. He let her explore his mouth as her breathing steadied, reminding her what she tasted like with every pass of his lips. His stubble scratched against her chin, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was the way that her heartbeat stuttered when he leaned down to whisper in her ear.

“Be a good girl and scoot up the bed for me.”

Arya did as she was told, crawling backwards up the mattress until her head fell on one of the pillows. Gendry followed her, crawling up the length of her body as his hardened cock bobbed between them. Arya didn’t wait to be told, just held her arms above her head so Gendry could capture her hands with his and bracketed his hips with her thighs. She was waiting for him to finally enter her, another parallel to their first time together, but all he did was stare down at her with a strange expression on his face. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I just can’t believe you’re mine.”

“I love you, but my hormones are so out of control right now that if you keep saying shit like that, I’m gonna cry and ruin the mood.”

He let out a soft chuckle, then kissed her cheek. “I love you too.”

He thrust into her quickly and Arya knew that he remembered that night every bit as vividly as she did. He made love to her exactly as he had back then, with fast deep, thrusts that made her body ache for more as he slowly withdrew from her. It was paradise but she wanted more.

“More?” Gendry asked and Arya nodded, grateful that he could read her so perfectly now. 

He gripped her thigh and hiked it higher up on his hip as he started moving faster, never giving up an ounce of control as they moved in unison. Eight years, she thought, and she still couldn’t get enough of him. She kissed him hard as she teetered along the edge and clung tightly to him as she finally fell over.

The first desperate moments of her orgasm only made him feel more amazing as Gendry’s pace grew frantic, then faltered as he filled her with his own release. Panting, he pulled away from her and rolled onto his side, dragging her with him. Arya rested her head against his chest, listening to the thundering of his heart beneath her ear as their breathing evened out.

“Happy birthday, Gendry.”

Her husband pulled her closer and kissed her forehead. “Happy Friday, Arya.”

* * *

_ I don't care if Monday's blue _

_ Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too _

_ Thursday, I don't care about you _

_ It's Friday, I'm in love _

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! If you're enjoying this so far, please drop me some kudos or a comment. And if you want to see related content or ask questions, check me out on tumblr under the same username.


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